New Cub

[Sailor]

My new 1948 Cub made the trip from PA to KY without any mishaps. It arrived late Sunday evening and I haven't out of the garage since then, with the exception of eating, bathing and sleeping. It came with a sickle cutter, cultivators, double plows, draw bar and dozer blade. My wife says I reminder her of a kid, at Xmas time, sitting in the floor surrounded by all my new presents. She also says I smell like the tractor?

Except for a little blow-by, it runs like a top! So all I'm going to do for now is lube and change the fluids.

Anyway, I have been going through Clem's "What to do with the Cub you just bought" list and I have a couple of questions.
1. The owners manual says to use SAE 30W oil, is that set in stone. seems like I have read somewhere on this forum that other weights can be used.
2. The owners manual says to use SAE-90 for tranny, steering gear, rear axle, etc. Would a synthetic blend SAE 75W-90 work as well?

I downloaded the Owners Manual and have the Service and Parts Manuals on order from Binder.

Thanks,
Larry

[Clark Thompson]

straight 30 wt or a 15 40 is good for summer. as far as gear lube and engine oil I would stay away for any synthedic and or synthedic belends. Reason being your cub may have the original leather seals. synthedics will disolve the leather seals. I have seen it happen many times. as far as gear oil wt I use 80-140. been good for years.

[Sailor]

Thanks for the quick response, off to the parts store. I might get all this done before dinner.

[Xperimental]

I only use GL-4 gear oil or Hy-Tran in the transmission. There was some discussion here about this topic last spring:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=78272

[Urbish]

I ran 10W30 conventional in my crankcase for plowing this winter and will switch back to straight 30W for the summer. I second the opinion on using synthetic gearlube.

[Sailor]

So I got straight SAE 30 for the crankcase and GL5 80W-90 gear oil. Had to order a oil pan gasket, so I'll just do the gear oil change today and do the oil change this week-end.

Thanks for your inputs guys. Like my son-in-law said, there have been a lot of changes in lubricants since 1948 and without knowledge/experience from the folks on this forum, it would be easy to make a costly mistake.