First off, this is my first post and I am new to mud motors.

I am building a mud motor from the Mad Mud Motor plans, and had a question about the greasing system. according to the plans, the whole tube is filled with all purpose grease. Would better lubrication not be acheived by using gear oil instead? My thought was that in cold weather the grease is going to stay pretty thick and might not lubricate as well. Another thought is that any metal shavings from using bushings would tend to fall to the bottom instead of staying in suspension. Thoughts?

My other question is about the boat I'm going to put it on. Right now I have a 1236 riveted jon boat. I'm planning on buying a 1242 all welded jon boat. Should I get better performance from the wider boat since it will have more flat surface than the old one? Before anyone says to get a bigger boat, the Brazos river doesn't have any boat ramps within 100 miles of me, so I need to be able to muscle the boat around a little to get it in the water.

Thanks!

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I don't know what kind of seals they use in there lower bearing but I my homemade LT I have a tapered roller bearing and two oil seals one facing in to keep greese and one facing out to keep water out. I have greese and a little ATF in my shaft housing ran it a year without any problems at all.

use grease. boat size is fine, go as big as you feel comfortable manhandling.

I'd use grease and not gear oil

I run grease in my GDLT all season
And I live in Canada

No matter how cold it's gotten - grease/lubrication has never been an issue

And believe me - I've been in VERY cold weather with this motor...

^^
same here, grease in my longtail all season into December here in Minnesota without issue. No need to reinvent the wheel.


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