Re: Speaking of oil cups..

I have found two oil cups, one of which was apparently lost under the circumstances of an engine upset that I described on the other thread. It still is wet with 100-year-old oil inside. It is solid brass with threads that turn with the feel of a micrometer. It shows up in photographs of Manchester 4-4-0s built in 1882.

The other one is highly deteriorated like the one you show here. It was found in an area of a railroad scrap pile, not a site directly associated with a wreck. It has a steel body and steel needle valve stem, and a brass cap. It too has a broken off pipe nipple, which would be typical, since that is the only feature that originally attached oil cups to rod bearing housings.

There are many different shape configuration designs of these oil cups, and probably some evolutionary stages of the basic function. The brass one I found has no fiber element inside. It has a raised pedestal with a little basin on top of it, and a brass threaded stem has a large steel needle that enters the drain hole in that little sink. The stem can be adjusted to how deep the needle inserts, which then controls the oil discharge. The cap of the oil chamber, or basic cup body, is dome shaped. So as the wheel revolves, and the cup thrusts up and down, on the down stroke, it forces oil up into the dome shape. The dome shape forces the oil toward the center around the needle valve stem. And on the down stroke, that oil drops down the valve stem, and into the little sink that meters the oil out to the bearing.

No doubt, there were other functional designs, which used wicks and perhaps other means of metering the oil.

The cup with the steel body cannot be unscrewed due to the heavy rust of the steel body seizing around the brass cap. But I have peered into the little hole in the broken off nipple to try to see what is inside. If there ever was any pedestal, sink, and needle valve features inside, they have all disappeared due to the ravages of time.