TS LG Gearbox paint and grease fitting

[SunbeamS7]

G'day fellow Douglas enthusiasts,
At the risk of seeming pedantic (a Douglas enthusiast-pedantic?) i have several LG 2 speed gearboxes and i note what appears to be vestiges of silver/aluminum paint on them. I'm just wondering if this was done post factory as i haven't come across this in any of my research to determine such?
I have also included a picture of a gearbox filler tube with what appears to be a grease fitting at the top (?) and wondered if others have encountered such?
Kind Regards,
bryan





Images rotated and aspect ratio fixed - Dave, 03Dec2023

[cardan]

Hi Bryan,

Sorry can't help re the paint - I've not seen it used by Douglas.

Re the grease fitting: The riser tube on the gearbox usually came with a hex bung in the end - see here https://www.douglasmotorcycles.net/index.php?topic=9596.0 for example. But if you follow the link in that thread, you'll see that a grease gun was used to fill the gearbox on some models. When a nipple was used, I suspect it would have been one of the flat Tecalmet ones, with a slide-on "shoe" fitted to the grease gun. These were used on the ohv RA/OB models at least. Yours is probably a mod by a previous owner, using another type of nipple popular in the 1920s.

Cheers

Leon

[cardan]

Tecalemit... close.

Leon

[EW-Ron]

At a club meeting, some years back, one of the old timers said that as a junior on his 1st job at a motorcycle dealers, his task was to take a can of silver frost and give the crankcases and gearbox a light coat - of silver.  Said that he got quite good at it, with few to no stray splashes of silver.  Done to prevent the alloy going that dreaded white colour on contact with salt spray anywhere near the seaside.

He would have been postwar, just. But carried on a practice going back into the mists of time.

??

[EW-Ron]

I once dismantled a Burman box - that someone had pack full (thats FULL) of regular grease.
The gears had all carved niches in the grease - such that little lubrication was actually going on.
Good job it had done very few miles subsequently ...

Semi-liquid grease is whats required = 00 grease = flowable grease.
Ride on lawnmowers etc use it in their gearboxes to this day ...

[Chris]

Hi Bryan
I have or in the past have had gearboxes of two, three and four speed configuration on most Douglas models from 1912 through to 1957 and have never seen a silver painted one so concur with Leon. As pointed out in the tale from EW-Ron, silver paint on gearboxes has been applied by individual owners or dealers subsequent to leaving the Douglas works.   Chris.

[SunbeamS7]

I just want to say thanks to all of you (and to/for this forum) for your considered responses. As per usual, this has been very helpful.
Thanks!
bryan