M77 Replaces Moly 60- Apparently So

[dwalby]

@midlife

yes, I stated the same thing you said regarding grease/paste in one of my previous posts, not trying to pull anybody's leg.

What (I think) some people are concerned about is since the new M77 product is labeled as 'grease' that it may not contain the 60% 'paste' formula, and not be a direct replacement for the old moly 60 paste. I was only suggesting that if we squeeze some out of the tube, we could at least determine if it has the consistency of the moly 60 paste or not. The part number from the previous Honda M77 product that was labeled as 'paste' has changed slightly, so there's some confusion as to the actual contents of the new Honda M77 product that is now labeled as 'grease'.

As you say, we've already covered the possibility that those terms are not mutually exclusive, but we still don't know the consistency of what's in the new tube.

 

[SupraSabre]

This is the BEST description I've read yet:1st:
It almost seems that folks who want to use it, or trust the parts counter guy, are trying to twist the words around and make more out of them than there is, hoping that their interpretation makes it ok to use.
For those folks who are using ANY of the M77 Grease/Paste, I would strongly urge them to open things up after a few hundred miles and inspect things, to make sure they are not damaging their driveshaft assembly
Several of the ones that I've seen lately, had severe wear on them "only since the last tire change, when they used the new M77 grease".
Its your equipment, how you take care of it depends on you.


:ds1: Luke, I am the father of Honda Moly 60

Hum, maybe I'll have a market for those couple of pumpkins and the final driven, flange set, as they are called, that I have in my parts bins!

 

[dwalby]

called the company that is now making the Honda M77 product, and was told it is a paste consistency. They did not have the moly content info immediately available, and the lab people were gone for the day, so they are going to call me back tomorrow if they can find that info.

 

[Upt' North]

called the company that is now making the Honda M77 product, and was told it is a paste consistency. They did not have the moly content info immediately available, and the lab people were gone for the day, so they are going to call me back tomorrow if they can find that info.

Good man.
Upt'North.

 

[Igofar]

@midlife

yes, I stated the same thing you said regarding grease/paste in one of my previous posts, not trying to pull anybody's leg.

What (I think) some people are concerned about is since the new M77 product is labeled as 'grease' that it may not contain the 60% 'paste' formula, and not be a direct replacement for the old moly 60 paste. I was only suggesting that if we squeeze some out of the tube, we could at least determine if it has the consistency of the moly 60 paste or not. The part number from the previous Honda M77 product that was labeled as 'paste' has changed slightly, so there's some confusion as to the actual contents of the new Honda M77 product that is now labeled as 'grease'.

As you say, we've already covered the possibility that those terms are not mutually exclusive, but we still don't know the consistency of what's in the new tube.

I have a new tube, and did open it up, the new stuff that came out of the red and white tube was very thin, and had fluid seeping out, even after i massaged it back and forth to mix it up.
Seems like a watery, very thin paste like substance. The fly in the ointment was the stuff that also came out of a new stock Honda Moly 60 tube was just as thin and the exact same color.
The old tube of Honda Moly 60 that I have on hand is a much darker slate grey color, and much thicker and dries quickly when you apply it.
This is my concern that SOMEBODY put the wrong product in the last batch of Honda Moly 60 tubes

 

[Igofar]

Hum, maybe I'll have a market for those couple of pumpkins and the final driven, flange set, as they are called, that I have in my parts bins!

Bob, you know the white courtesy :call: has your number on speed dial

 

[Igofar]

called the company that is now making the Honda M77 product, and was told it is a paste consistency. They did not have the moly content info immediately available, and the lab people were gone for the day, so they are going to call me back tomorrow if they can find that info.

I would not hold my breath on a return call....
Yes, we've all agreed that it is GREASE with the consistency of a thin PASTE.
But it still is grease.
The Honda folks I've talked too, whether it be behind the parts counter, service director, Honda Customer care rep, all thought that the Honda Moly 60 was 60% moly too
It has to be....because its right there on the label :nuts1:
They fell silent when confronted with the spec sheets showing it was approximately 40-42% moly solids.
I guess it was FALSE NEWS

 

[Igofar]

@midlife

yes, I stated the same thing you said regarding grease/paste in one of my previous posts, not trying to pull anybody's leg.

What (I think) some people are concerned about is since the new M77 product is labeled as 'grease' that it may not contain the 60% 'paste' formula, and not be a direct replacement for the old moly 60 paste. I was only suggesting that if we squeeze some out of the tube, we could at least determine if it has the consistency of the moly 60 paste or not. The part number from the previous Honda M77 product that was labeled as 'paste' has changed slightly, so there's some confusion as to the actual contents of the new Honda M77 product that is now labeled as 'grease'.

As you say, we've already covered the possibility that those terms are not mutually exclusive, but we still don't know the consistency of what's in the new tube.

Guess what, the product that was labeled as Honda Moly 60, with the writing right there on the side of the tube, that said it was 60% moly solids was incorrect also.
Don't believe everything you read.

 

[dwalby]

I'm not terribly busy at work currently, so this is filling in my spare time, but its an interesting learning experience. From what I can gather so far:

1. from the viewpoint of the mfrs, paste is just a consistency description for grease, they may call it one or the other interchangeably, but I'm still not 100% sure about that because,
2. from the viewpoint of the service manual industry, a grease gun icon with the letter "M" is defined as moly grease (>3% moly) and the letters "MP" are defined as moly paste (>40% moly). They are not ambiguous.

So if moly 60 was really only 40-42% moly all along, that still meets the service manual spec of >40% moly, and it qualifies as moly paste according to the service manual definitions.

What I'm curious to hear if they return my phone call is if the new M77 formula is paste consistency but <40% moly, and that's why they chose to use the term 'grease' for the label instead of 'paste'.

edit: and as you know Larry, I'm extremely meticulous about how I lube my drive splines, so the answer to this question is very important to me.

 

[SMSW]

The Calsci site recommends either the XHT-AC or the XHT-BDX grades.

But the GPL grades you highlighted would also make sense, like the 225 for instance.

Expensive, so wondering if anybody here has tried one of these already.

Ouch! $40 to $65 per ounce! And its main claim to fame is its high temp resistance. Were our splined shafts running that hot after a few hundred miles, we would feel the heat and it is possible nearby seals might sustain damage.

Just been catching up with this epilogue, did everyone just ignore UP, shame on you, 150,000 miles without issue. That's a lot of 0's.

Well done UP at least you decided to enter relevant information, I.E. you've used it and it worked.

Also worth considering is that some of you folk get enormous tyre mileage and hence the rear wheel can be on a long time, were lucky to get a season out of a set, probably 5000 miles.
Upt'North.

Four '0's' is not a lot of them. A gaggle, maybe, and certainly not a quorum. UP's test is only anecdotal evidence. However, I would probably use the Locktite product or the other Moly Paste I suggested earlier if I did not have most of my tube left. In a PM exchange with Larry a while ago, I argued that routine maintenance consisting of cleaning the splines carefully (both male and female) and lubricating them carefully was vital - and by routine, I meant at least every 10k miles. IIRC, he agreed, but still wanted MP that fit Honda's original specs to be the lube of choice.

since you have the tube in your possession, have you squeezed any out to see if its more like a grease, or more like a paste?

We're probably going to debate what's in the various Honda M-77 packages for months with no real conclusion.

Semantics. Looking at the stuff or playing with it still does not tell us about its suitability for the job. And what else are Oil, Battery, Tire, and now Moly threads for if not to debate forever the various and imagined benefits without a real conclusion?

 

[Andrew Shadow]

It almost seems that folks who want to use it, or trust the parts counter guy, are trying to twist the words around and make more out of them than there is, hoping that their interpretation makes it ok to use

Writing it off as not being a valid replacement for Moly 60 because of a lack of trust in parts counter guys is not anymore of a compelling argument the other way. It is not as though the parts counter guys make these decisions themselves. No parts counter guys decided on their own or collectively that Honda M-77 was the correct replacement for Honda Moly 60 because they did not know what else to give the customer. Correctly or not Honda made that decision. The parts counter guy showed me that he entered the part number for Moly 60 and placed the order in the Honda computer system. He showed me the response from the Honda computer system stating that this P/N was discontinued and has been replaced by the P/N that is the new Honda M-77. Whether or not it should be the replacement for Moly 60 I have no idea. I do know however that it was a decision made by Honda corporate and not the parts counter guys. Will I blindly believe it because Honda made the decision? No, and that is partly because of what you have related here about M-77 based on your wealth of experience in the real-world. I would still like to know the Moly content.

since you have the tube in your possession, have you squeezed any out to see if its more like a grease, or more like a paste?

I squeezed some out today. What first came out of the tube was very liquid. This did not concern me as I have seen this often with similar items. Some separation in storage is normal- see below. I wanted to see what it looked like before it was kneaded. I then kneaded it and then squeezed out some more. I don't have any Moly 60 around so I must rely on memory. Based on memory the M-77 seems extremely similar to the Moly 60. I am not to hung up on whether to call it a grease or a paste as far as trying to convey its consistency. I have used greases that are much less liquid than Moly 60 paste so this doesn't help much for this purpose. I would refer to this as the consistency of room temperature peanut butter. I am defining room temperature as 20 deg. C / 68 deg. F because we don't need to start that debate again! It is very dark, almost black, when it comes out of the tube and then the colour lightens a little to a very dark grey. It stays where you put it as you can see in the pictures below which were all taken on a slope of about 35 degrees. The M-77 that is on the tip of the screwdriver was about 1/4" in height and also on the same slope. I let it sit for 10 of 15 minutes and it did not slump at all. It adheres very well to clean steel. The screwdriver is missing some of the chrome plate on the tip. Where there was no plating it was difficult to clean the M-77 off.

I am not really sure what value any of this exercise was as none of this tells me much more than I knew before as I still do not know the moly content of this stuff.

Below is one definition of grease VS paste from Dow Corning.
In many of their product sheets grease or paste is not used to convey the consistency of the product but rather the type of product that it is. Having said that they seem to use the two terms interchangeably as well in some instances. Because of this I am beginning to think that whether a product is being referred to as a grease or a paste in its description is not of much importance- kind of like marketing. :These terms would probably carry more weight when they are used in the actual technical data sheets. The consistency of the product is described by listing its viscosity.

A grease is an "emulsion" - think of mayonnaise - of an oil with a "soap" emulsifier, commonly lithium stearate in the case of many greases. A paste is more of a "suspension" of solid particles, in this case micronized molybdenum disulphide and other solid lubricants, in a liquid carrier, in this case a light mineral oil. This is why some separation of the oil can occur during storage but may be readily mixed back in by stirring.

 

[Upt' North]

Just fired an email off to the Molyslip company "expert", about there AS40 product which on paper seems to fit the bill, the email was specific as to its suitability and I will report back once a reply is forthcoming.
Upt'North.

 

[dwalby]

Here are the data sheets on the stuff Andrew has purchased. Bottom line, 60-70% moly.

View attachment PST-77 Rev4 SDS.pdf View attachment PST-77 Rev 4.pdf

 

[dwalby]

Because of this I am beginning to think that whether a product is being referred to as a grease or a paste in its description is not of much importance- kind of like marketing.

That was exactly the comment I got from the guy at PolySi. I asked him since it appears to be somewhat standardized to use the grease gun icon with either "M" or "MP" to differentiate the two applications in service manuals, does the product labeling try to follow those same conventions. He said "no, the marketing guys put whatever label on it they want"

 

[Bush]

Here are the data sheets on the stuff Andrew has purchased. Bottom line, 60-70% moly.

The technical data sheet would indicate that this product is NOT suitable though, regardless of the moly content. - "formulated for critical applications with low speeds and low to moderate loads"

 

[dwalby]

The technical data sheet would indicate that this product is NOT suitable though, regardless of the moly content. - "formulated for critical applications with low speeds and low to moderate loads"

speed and load is quite relative with no numerical definition. The ST final drive would be considered low speed compared to a turbo impeller, and the load would be considered low compared to the output shaft splines on a large diesel engine. So without any specific definition of 'low' its hard to say for sure. The tech rep did mention they package the same stuff under several different labels for BMW and other m/c applications, he was familiar with our application.

 

[Igofar]

speed and load is quite relative with no numerical definition. The ST final drive would be considered low speed compared to a turbo impeller, and the load would be considered low compared to the output shaft splines on a large diesel engine. So without any specific definition of 'low' its hard to say for sure. The tech rep did mention they package the same stuff under several different labels for BMW and other m/c applications, he was familiar with our application.

I'd love to see his other m/c applications and labels. Most of the BMW shops I've wandered around in, used to use the Honda Moly 60.
Could this guy be the all powerful Oz behind the curtain? :bow1:

 

[MidLife]

...... Dow Corning.

In many of their product sheets grease or paste is not used to convey the consistency of the product but rather the type of product that it is.

This is an eye opener for me.

As you say, Dow clearly use the term "paste" for their "anti-seize" or "assembly" type of products.

As you also explain, in a grease, the solid lubricant is an additive that moves around with the product. In a paste, the high percentage solid lubricant IS the lubricant and the paste is mainly there to deposit the solid where we want it to be and help it stick there.

Per Dow: "Pastes and Solid Lube are greaselike materials that contain a very high percentage of solid lubricants; used for assembly and lubrication of highly loaded, slow-moving parts or threaded fasteners.".

And as you also noted, there is typically no NLGI grade called for a "paste", as we already know it is going to be of a pasty consistence by default. My superficial look at the manual with Honda calling a NLGI 2 for the spline lube made me believe it would be a grease with a NLGI grade 2 paste feel. But you were obviously much more thorough when you looked into this.

To support what you outlined, my 2003 manual lists Molykote G-n as an acceptable substitute to Moly 60, and G-n is most definitely...a paste!

I thought a grease would be required for the splines, similar to a bearing grease for relatively fast moving parts. It is not. We just have parts strongly pressed together and need a solid lubricant to coat and stick to the surfaces between them to prevent wear/galling, which is what a paste provides.

I understand now why there are some out there on the web who report having good results with just spraying the splines (Btw, G-n is also available in spray form).

I am not really sure what value any of this exercise was as none of this tells me much more than I knew before.

True. You can squeeze a NLGI 1 or 2 grease tube (paste consistency) and it will feel just like a "paste" and tell you absolutely nothing about its suitability.

I have a tube of Tomato Paste that feels just like the Moly 60 I used to have when I squeeze the tube, but I don't think I am going to apply it on the splines (Although I can already hear Sir Larry shouting that my Tomato Paste will probably provide much better service than the M77 Honda Assembly Paste!).


..........................................................................

......I still do not know the moly content of this stuff.

What Moly content would you be satisfied with? What was the Moly content of Moly 60?


Anyhow, thank you for your time on this. It was an education for me!

 

[caldercay]

https://coatingsystems.com/molykote-grease-vs-paste/

 

[Andrew Shadow]

The issue of whether a product is suitable for high speed applications or not is a moot point as far as the speed of movement of the splines relative to each other is concerned. This speed is just about zero. i.e. The male splines remain more or less fixed against the female splines- they do not move much in terms of speed against each other. Speed of rotation of the entire assembly would have a greater affect as the centrifugal force would cause the lubricant to migrate away from where it needs to be and to the outer edges. A correctly spec'd product keeps the lubricant where it is placed and where it needs to be. Whether this assembly rotational speed would be classified as low speed or high speed for the purposes of a lubricant in this application is a whole other kettle of fish. As for the loads- what is a low, moderate or high load? Once that is defined do we know what the load applied in an ST1100/1300 final drive is? I have no idea.

The technical data sheet would indicate that this product is NOT suitable though, regardless of the moly content. - "formulated for critical applications with low speeds and low to moderate loads"