Lyman 450 O-ring question.

Ian

Notorious member
Yup, and Brett's description is spot-on. We have a Caterpillar O-ring kit at work, but it's for much larger sizes.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Speaking of caterpillars....
In Europe do they have 2.54cmworms?
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is, if you think you may ever use some of the more powerful cleaners in your Lube/sizer, you may want to opt for Viton O-rings as opposed to Buna-N.

I get my O-rings from Graingers.
Graingers is also one of my go-to sources.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Didn't even know such a thing existed!


This is the first one that came up on a web search. I have 2, the last one I bough came off Ebay and was around $25.00 shipped and looks just like this one but not the same brand. https://www.amazon.com/d/Hydraulic-Seals-O-Rings/Loctite-112-O-Ring-Making-Kit/B00065T1C2

I've only used o-rings made from a couple materials, but if you research it at all there are at least a dozens different materials they use. Get into food grade stuff and there's a few more. The Buna works pretty good for most things. I got a cheapy o ring kit off one of those tool warehouse trucks one day and I swear they are made from used Chinese chewing gum. A pale green in color, they are the softest, most easily distorted o rings I've ever seen. But they work okay if you get them seated and don't have too much pressure to deal with. I have some ancient Caterpillar D4 cylinder sleeve o rings that turned into gummy worms and grew to twice their size in diameter and length just from washing them in diesel! No clue what they were made of back in 1953!
 
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358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Cat has used a lot of different liner o-ring compositions over the years. IH is probably a close second. All o-ring materials are sensitive to something. One hotly debated topic with mechanics is which o-ring lubricant to use to install cylinder liners. I've seen recommendations for dish soap (Dawn), mineral oil, engine oil, grease, silicone grease, JD Liner O-ring soap, and others. And it still seems to keep changing. I think for exposure to bullets lube plain old nitrile is probably the way to go. Green o-rings seem most commonly used in air conditioning systems, silicone seems more popular with air & fuel, and the Viton variants are most common in areas that deal with heat & pressure.

Just rambling... I haven't had to deal with this sort of thing for a few years, and my recollections are probably outdated.
 

Ian

Notorious member
The main thing about o-ring lube is use something compatible with the o-ring material and service environment. Never grease a buna-N wet liner o-rings with chassis grease. One of the best all-around liner lubes is glycerin-based tire lube, or aloe vera "gel" sunburn preparations. $20/ounce Parker o-ring lube is great for Teflon and Viton and even some of the Nitriles if a little controlled swelling after installation is desired and durometer isn't critical.

I deal with Grainger as little as possible. Their sister company, Imperial Supplies, can get anything I need from Grainger at 30% less money if I call up the friendly salesman and haggle with her a little. That's how I got our last recurculating wash cabinet pump motor from Grainger for only $420 instead of 700.
 
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358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
We use Imperial at work too, and they are willing to work with us. I don't think they sell to the general public though.
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
There is a Grainger store 10 minutes away from me, they have a lot of stuff in stock or can get it overnight. I check carefully before I buy any big ticket items from them, but I have found some good deals there on a couple of things. I also like McMaster Carr, but they are strictly mail order.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I've never gotten great pricing from Grainger. We still use them only when absolutely necessary. As mentioned before, Imperial is doing well for us. When I took my current job I looked at the companies parts sourcing and knew I could do better for them. Getting the owners to let me tip the apple cart over a bit was a struggle though. Now they realize they were getting ripped off by the suppliers they trusted the most. Some of these suppliers are now history, the rest are fully aware that I'm watching them.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Grainger is one of those outfits that has everything, but it's all rather expensive. I've done a little business with them but what I usually end up doing is using Grainger as a way to find out the specs on what it is I'm looking for and then I hunt up a less expensive, maybe even used, option. McMaster Carr has been a life saver a few times. Brake band material for a 1950's crawler, well over 2 bills from the original manuf. $24.00 from MC. I got some tubing for a project from MC a few year back that I just could source anywhere else and it was only a few dollars. So having both Grainger and MC out there helps. I imagine people going to Grainger on a regular basis might be doing a lot of gov't contract work. The sky always seems to be the limit there. We see that at our local plumbing supply house. They do a lot of business with Ft Drum so they carry a lot of US made stuff that other outlets don't even think about carrying. Some of that US made stuff is worth it's weight in gold, and costs almost as much, but it won't spring a leak on 3 years behind a sheetrock wall or in a ceiling.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
I've found over the years that the places that have it all on hand or tomorrow morning have higher prices . The guys here like Kieth understand that it costs money to keep that oddball on the shelf for that one job that you do once every 5-6 years but could drop at any time for 100 pieces on 14 hr of overtime gotta have it yesterday the building is down until we get it . It might sit there years then sell a bunch over a short time along with $5000 of common parts because it is a one stop and the only oddball on hand for 6 hr drive or 6 day delivery . I went through that I don't know how many times in the last lifetime . I've had shopping carts on line with 2 of that here , 3 those there , and all them here and a clearance item I've been putting off is $6 to put me over for free shipping even though I spent $14 more than I wanted to I saved $40 on freight getting it from 2-3 places . That is how the we have that oddball but we're 10% more than everyone else have to run .

Oddly enough that's exactly how I ended up with my first NOE . After freight it was $10 more the 5C NOE than it was for either of the iron 2C from 3 other vendors .
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
I have fought with our old air compressor many times recently, and every time I needed a part Grainger had it in stock locally. In-tank check valve, pressure cutoff switch, top end relief valve, all available on a walk in basis. Could I have gotten any of this stuff cheaper ? You betcha I could - TOMORROW. When every machine in your shop needs air to run and otherwise you lose a day of production and got a couple folks sitting around scratching their nether regions whilst playing video games on their phones - well a couple extra dollars for RIGHT NOW is cheap.

I buy a lot of tools from a place called Imperial Fastener, they seem like they are national, could they be part of the Imperial some of you guys have mentioned?
 

Ian

Notorious member
Imperial Supplies, LLC out of Wisconsin. They must have the entire Packers cheerleading team on the sales force, our account been assigned to three different young ladies in as many years and they all sound alike...and like "valley girls" but with true Wisconsin accent. Friendly and professional, too. They call about once a month trying to drum up sales and offering specials. My take on their business model is corporate accounts with steady monthly or weekly stock orders plus whatever happens to come up.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I once worked with a guy named Chuck who never did anything wrong. All you had to do was ask him, he was perfect. We all know the type. He was the analytical type, he said. Always thought everything out to the last decimal (not really). So we had a customers 627B Cat scraper down, and Chuck was working with the mechanic, arranging parts. One part was available at the local Cat dealer, but cost almost ten dollars more than the part from our normal supplier. Chuckie ordered it from out regular supplier, then bragged to the customer about looking out for him, and saving him money. The guy just looked at Chuck and said that it was costing him over $1500.00 in lost revenue per day to have that scraper down, then he turned around and walked out the door. Our parts manager at the time got on the phone to Cat and ordered the part for pickup that day. That day was a learning experience for me, and I never forgot it. And the best part was, it wasn't my mess! I was just a spectator. Doing the right thing vs. doing whats right.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Yep, "parts manager" is my job title and a huge part of my job is making executive decisions regarding parts procurement. Frequently there is a choice between overnight freight or 5-7 days ground or stock order and salesman brings it week after next. Weight/size of part is a big factor too. If the Turbo is only available from Bosch in NC and the truck if goes on makes the owner a grand or more a day and he has no spare, $150 air freight is a no-brainer. If it goes on Joe Bob's landscape haul truck and he can put that job off a week and do something else, has a second truck, or can borrow his buddy's for a few days, money is worth more than time.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Right now vs in a couple days- we have a very, very old (they opened when horse or steam power was the choice) Case dealer in town. The place is in business, but it's not a serious attempt to the current owner, the great (or great-great) grandson of the original owner. I was there one day looking for a part they didn't have. The owner tells me he can get it in 3-5 days. I tell him I can get it in 2-3 days or even over night on line. He says, "Yeah, but I can do the ordering and save you time!" Right, 10 minutes on line vs driving 15 minutes to town and 15 back, and paying probably 3x as much for slower service. This is the reality of modern life. If it's something in stock I usually buy local. If it's not something in stock I'm going on line and having it delivered to my doorstep for what will likely be a good deal less money and no 8% sales tax. If it's something that I have to have "now" and it's not available locally, there is no way I'm paying $25-40 for a local business to get it shipped overnight to them. I made that bone headed mistake more than once. I'll pay the $6 or 7.00 for FedEx or maybe even get it off Amazon since SWMBO has a Prime acct. That is jut the reality of our system in 2019.
 

oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
Bret. Right there with you. Only flaw in your system is that now, inline companies are starting to charge the tax! Brownells and Midway now are. And my wife noticed the same thing other day when she purchased online. Can't say about Amazon yet...