LR-32 maintenance

[DynaGlide]

I've owned my LR-32 for a few years. When I went to use it this past time it just didn't feel smooth. The little lever that retracts the pin was rough and it was hard to push the base on the guide rail. I chalked the second issue up to the rail having some uneven thickness where the base attaches over since I took out any slack with the adjusting screws.

The first issue caused me to pickup some Tri-Flow lubricant. I hit the pin on the bottom of the LR-32 plate and the spring mechanism with a few drops. Holy smokes. I wish I would've done that before I had to use the LR-32. It's smooth as butter now. Then I wiped down the guide rail where the LR-32 plate attaches. Same deal, easy sliding.

Sharing this tip with anyone else to hopefully help them out. The bottle is going to last a long time and now I'm going to look for other machines around my shop to use it on.

Matt

 

[mino]

It is also good to sand the LR32 slide where it touches the rail rib.

It is stamped steel and is never (absolutely) flat from factory.

I removed the cams from the plate, then rolled a sheet of a 1200 grit paper around a straight edge and sanded the reference surface of the plate a bit. Not too much, just enough to create "contact points" that were absolutely flat and planar with each other. It is actually undesirable for the whole surface to be in contact with the rail so just slight sanding is enough.
After that I used the same contraption to sand the edges in an angle about 5 degrees off so when the plate slides there is no sharp end that could scratch the rail. All this was done in a "linear" way so any sanding scratches would not end up "filing" the rail while in use.
After that I put some mineral oil on the plate to seal it.

It took me about 30 minutes total and the slide was night/day ref resistance and it also eliminated even a theoretical possibility of scratching the rail with the steel plate. I plan to repeat it once in a while by gently hand-sanding and re-lubing as needed.

For oiling sliding surfaces etc. I try to avoid any synthetic stuff and stick to pure mineral oils. This helps in not needing to worry about lubricant longevity. Pure mineral oils are not such a good lubricant as modern synthetics are, but they lasted a couple millennia in the ground so there is no concern with decomposition over time.

In past I used a special synthetic lube on a bicycle and then could not use it for about a year while it was on the balcony on sun/weather. The lubricant decomposed into sticky almost glue-like residue. Had to clear everything with a solvent and lube again which was a real PITA given the bike was almost fresh-lubed before storage. No such issues with mineral oils.

 

[Imemiter]

First, Tri-Flow smelled like banana cream pie to me. Then the pie began to smell like Tri-Flow. Thanks Tri-Flow.  [mad]