I don’t know what bulb lube actually is. I just buy the package that says “bulb lube”.
It’s cheap and it works great. There’s no reason to try to figure it out.
I’ve Used Sil-Glyde For Years. It’s Good To 600 F Degrees, According To The Manufacturer.
Just last week I purchased a 4oz. tube of NAPA Sil-Glyde Lubricating Compound (blue tube) for $6.49 (I am cheap thrifty a wise shopper and I thought that was high priced…). I have used this and also the white tubes of Sil-Glyde in the past.
The tube says, “Non-melting, Non-freezing, Non-gumming, Weatherproof.” Also, the tube says, " contains silicone (That’s got to be the “Sil” in Sil-Glyde, I have believed.).
CSA
@kmccune there is no such thing as an economical inkjet. If you want economical, get a laser printer. They cost a little more up front, but the toner doesn’t expire and prints a lot more pages per dollar than any inkjet on the planet. A typical toner cartridge will print 2,000+ pages. A typical inkjet cartridge, you’re lucky if you get 500 pages out of it, and you’d better print them fast because some of them have built in expiration chips which disable the cartridge after a set time interval has passed since you broke the seal.
db4690 Bought a 55 gallon drum of prop wash at COSTCO. I saved a bundle and it should last for generations! lol
sgtrock21, When I worked at an airport while in High School, any new hires had to make many trips to the airport chief mechanic to get their buckets filled with Prop Wash.
We always waited for them to return several times and ask questions pertaining to Summer Weight or Winter Weight, octane, color, etcetera.
CSA
You guy’s just waste your money on all those hokey things. Bulb lube, prop wash, brake grease, etc. etc…
Keep it simple. When the hatchbacks lid props get a little dirty, I just use a little 409…prop wash!!! What a scam. And that 409 works great when the grand kids come over and I check for dirt behind their ears.
I ran out of brake grease one day and happened to walk up to the house to use the bathroom. I noticed the tube of “Desitin” and took that to the shop and used it for brake grease…or was it brake grease that I used on the granddaughter’s diaper rash. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
Seriously though; I cleaned out some drawers and threw out a lot of all those little tubes and packets of lube that were supposed to be for specific uses. They were just taking up space and by the time I’d try to use one…it was no good. Isn’t it always like that. You buy a three pack of superglue…repair the item you purchased it for, and by the time you need another tube they are as hard as a rock.
I keep two cans of brake grease, two of white grease, two of silicone grease, two of wheel bearing grease and two of Antisieze. All have a small hole cut out of the tops and a acid brush kept in each.
One row is for only clean surfaces, the other…I’m not concerned if it gets a little contaminated with a few rust specks or such.
AS an example, I was replacing the bumper and hitch on a truck yesterday and I lubed the old rusty bolts and nuts with a little Wheel bearing grease from the tub that I don’t care if it gets a little dirt in it. Had I been installing a new hitch ball it would have gotten a little anti sieze from the cleaner tub, while had it been an old rusty hitch ball, I would have used the dirty tub of antisieze.
THey are not really dirty…but I couldn’t think of what to call them.
Bulb lube I’ve seen, but I was taught 50years ago that white grease helped keep the oxygen sealed away so they wouldn’t corrode.
I have used Dielectric grease in the past few years, but only for electrical connections that are exposed to the elements…under the hood, or chassis mounted areas, but I still use the white grease for bulbs.
I wish someone had put a little grease on the bulb I changed for my sister. If they had I wouldn’t have had it break and stab me in the palm and leave a little glass in there.
Yosemite
“I wish someone had put a little grease on the bulb I changed for my sister. If they had I wouldn’t have had it break and stab me in the palm and leave a little glass in there.”
That’s why I use bulb lube…
Thanks shadow,when I print my online receipts for auto parts,I’ll know the cost per page isnt excessive,the internet has been the greatest tool I’ve ever had for car repair
I could fill pages ranting about phony reasons for grossly overcharging consumers for products but I wont. This discussion concerns paying more for smaller quantities. This practice is normal. If the unit of measure is ounces the price per ounce will typically be more for 2 ounces than for 12 ounces. As far as I know it has always been this way. I did accidentally discover an exception last week. I had to drive to the city for a Dr. appointment so I got a few errands done. I filled my gas tank. Ran my car through a car wash then went to Wal-Mart. I needed a small amount of super glue. I found a .5 ounce bottle in the adhesives section priced at $5. I went to the office supply section for something else and discovered a package of 4 .1 ounce tubes for $1.50!
It has appeared to me that the McParts stores have chosen to use the postage stamp size envelopes of various chemicals as high profit markers for grading their counter help. When this first occurred to me long ago I quit declining the desperate efforts of the clerk to add the 50c add on and in a week or so brought all of the envelopes back and insisted that the manager refund the price. After that it was rare that anyone offered the products to me. And of course all the McParts stores have since developed a commercial desk where a totally different attitude is used. Some O’Reilly stores are predominantly commercial and operate somewhat like the old local stores while Advance and Auto Zone can’t get too far away from their DIY base. If one of the McParts chains increased the price of brake pads 25c and gave each customer 2 packs of brake lube free I would guess that they would gain a considerable amount of customer loyalty while adding at least 10c to the profit on the brakes.
That is a price difference!!!
The only thing I found on a regular basis that is priced backwards (to my thinking), is canned Tuna at the grocery store. The small can is less per ounce than the larger can…go figure.
It would bug the heck out of me when the wife would bring home a little 10oz bottle of dish soap…like that’s a life times supply. If you went to the trouble to go to the store and make it worth while and get the 40 ounce bottle. Then she will buy the big jar 32oz of minced fresh garlic that won’t fit in the refrigerator door and you have to struggle with this jar until it’s gone for a year.
Sometimes you just have to stop and think…"will I use this up before it’s lost it’s flavor or it goes bad.
Yosemite
I was given 2 tubes of Syl-glide about 25 years ago. Still have 1/2 tube left. That 1 1/2 tubes worth had done more than 50 brake jobs, probably only 10 or 12 of them mine.
For bulb grease, bicycle bearings, battery terminals , lubing the point rubbing block on my old snowblower or a 50 Chrysler I use plain petroleum jelly. $1.00 at the Dollar Tree for 3/1/2 ounces. When they first put a Dollar Tree near me , it was a whole pound for a buck.
It isalso a great product for cracked heels.
I don’t know if bulb grease is the same as dielectric or not. I think it is and always use it on my bulbs and spark plug boots, etc. But, to add a little more to the collection, there is also socket lube for you household light bulbs. You get a little container of it at the big boxes for a few dollars. Light bulb bases have gotten pretty cheap and on fixtures like the bath rooms with high heat bulbs, I use it all the time to prevent sticking of the bulb to the socket.
Also don’t forget pipe joint compound and of course plumbers grease. One tube will last a lifetime. I was first introduced when I had a faucet diverter valve that didn’t work right for the kitchen sprayer. I took it down to a plumbing store to get a new one. He just took out his tube of plumbers grease and put a little dab on the valve and it was good as new. Saved me $20 and I’ve had my own tube ever since. I used to use it to reseal the cruise control valve on my Buick too about every six months.
That other stuff is in my other workshop in the basement. Having completely rewired, and replumbed a house, reconfigured the heating system including creating custom ductwork, installed new windows and doors, done framing, sheetrocking, and everything else imaginable on a house, I have tons of that stuff. And a lot of it can be surprisingly useful for emergency temporary automotive repairs.
I’m thinking of buying a 55 gallon drum of blinker fluid
I live in Los Angeles, and spend a lot of time driving in city traffic, so the blinker sees a lot of use
Perhaps the 55 gallon drum would last a whole year . . .
There’s got to be some kind of exchange service out there . . . trade in your empty drum for a full drum
You think anybody’s ever walked into autozone, asking for blinker fluid?
I wonder if anybody’s ever called one of those shops that sell bearings, asking if they have muffler bearings in stock?
Man, if I was the one picking up the phone, I’d play that game a little longer. I’d ask them for the measurements of the muffler bearings
There’s an old story, who knows if it’s true, about a guy who decided to make his wife look stupid, so he sent her down to the parts store for a muffler bearing. She went, the parts guy explained that her husband was being a tool, and together they concocted revenge.
Parts guy went in back and got this old beat up bearing all full of grease and dirt. Boxed it up and generated a fake receipt for several hundred bucks for “bearing, muffler” and sent her home to show her husband.
Husband saw the receipt and lost it, called the parts store and screamed at them for defrauding his wife. Finally his wife intervened and told him the story. He ended up feeling so dumb and embarrassed that he bought the parts guy a case of beer as apology.
Back in the 70s there were a few people that send unsuspecting people down to the parts store for muffler bearings. Their buddy worked there and he’d sell them a little manila envelope with a dozen BBs in it for a dime. He’d tell them to just pour them in the gas tank at the next fill up. They would travel through the gas line, the engine and settle in the muffler where they belong.
The guy behind the counter now has a high end custom body shop. He must have sold a lot of those and put away those dimes.
Yosemite
Who would have believed that bulb lubricant would actually be real…
Okay, be honest, how many of you thought I was joking?
I knew you were correct because some makes of cars have used it on the production line; mostly on the old twist-in type bulbs. I seem to remember the bulbs on my old Mercury Sable were all gunked up with it.
I finally got fed up with inkjet printers and bought a color laser a couple of years ago. Anyone sick of printing costs should do so–you will never go back. I only print a few things a month but got sick of my inkjets needing to run through a cleaning cycle (or 3) just to print acceptably. That and the thimble full of ink in each cartridge. I want to print, I switch on the laser printer, the lights dim (no kidding), and in about 10 seconds it’s ready to go–same print quality every time and the toner carts (while expensive) should last me for years.
I too have a packet of bulb lubricant somewhere and have seen it on bulbs as well.
When I worked as a restaurant manager years ago, we had a similar twist on the muffler bearing scam. We’d send a greenhorn to another unit to pick up a “dough patch kit”. One of the more savvy guys stopped at home and threw a hotdog with a bandaid on it into a cardboard box and brought it back to us saying, “I don’t know how you use this, but here you go.”