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Grease, how old is too old?

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Grey Ghost

Wore out three sets of tires already!
I am buying a NIB 1986 Reproduction bike.

I know everything dries out eventually, but do you guys think the grease in the hubs/crank of this bike is still good enough for occasional riding?
 
Some reproductions are of better quality than others, and some types of grease last longer before drying out than others. Some of the later reproductions made abroad did not get enough grease when assembled at the factory. If the bike is already partially disassembled in the box, I'd just clean and re-grease everything now. It's already partially disassembled in the box, and it will give you a baseline so you'll know how long and how many miles you've gone before having to do it again the next time.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

It’s a Columbia 1952 5 Star Superb.

I believe I read that they were manufactured, all except the rims themselves, and assembled here in the USA, so hopefully they did a reasonable job and didn’t take any shortcuts.

I didn’t know if sitting there in a box all these years would cause grease to gum up or what. The only old grease I’ve dealt with in machinery was already used, and likely dirty.

Sounds like grease stays pretty stable, I’ll give things a spin and feel how they sound.
 
Why worry when you can do a quick re-grease of hubs, bottom bracket and headset. As Shawn said they tended to use a minimal amount of grease with the repo bikes. How they sound is not a good way to evauluate adequate lube. It's fun to get your hands a little greasy, although I use nitrile exam gloves and Schwinn synthetic grease. Any good bike grease will do. Enjoy the ride.
 
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The performance and smoothness of the bearings should also improve with a quality newer grease like Lucas green. The types of grease available today are better than even 25 years ago.
 
No doubt.
Many of today’s lubricants are engineered at the molecular level to far exceed ones of even a few years ago.
 
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