Lubricating oven rails

Do you really want your roasts to taste of WD40 or 3 in 1 ? I doubt it. Can't the rails be removed for cleaning? If not, I'd try a proprietary oven cleaner on them.

Lee Nowell wrote on 07/10/2019 :

They would rapidely burn off. I would suggest dry PTFE might do it.

Perfectly clean would be best.

Its probably hardened vegetable oil or burnt on fat that has caused the rails to become sticky. Clean them with a spray on oven cleaner (repeat if required)

WD 40 will last all of 10 seconds (flash point 49C), 3in 1 oil has a flash point of around 150C.

I wouldn't suggest PTFE :)

Frying pan temperatures are generally ok with PTFE coatings as long as you don't have an empty pan on a full output ring.

In the environment of an oven it gets slightly more dodgy. 200 deg C would be ok, but our oven for instance has a top setting of 300 deg C, that is getting into dodgy territory with PTFE. With a wonky thermostat it only need to rise to 327 deg C for the PTFE to start liberating some lethal products.

If the oven has catalytic cleaning like ours then it could be a clean oven with the drawback of a very permanent goodnight for all in the vicinity.

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It will burn off with a terrible pong so don't cook in it till its gone! I'm thinking a good clean then some kind of graphite based stuff. Brian

Do they have internal ball bearings, if they do remove them from the oven and degrease them and then use ptfe or graphite based dry lubricant, and refit them. Its normally the old grease from cooking that makes them stiff. Brian

almost certainly you dont need lubrication you need caustic to get rid of the grease that is coking it up

Agree completely about cleaning. Graphite is one option, the other thing which will take the temperature is a pure silicone oil. Either as a spray or the liquid which is sold for lubricating waste pipe fittings.

That is my thinking. I suspect they have become ?gummed up?.

Assuming the rails can be disassembled, I?d try taking them apart and cleaning them.

With the best will in the world, the nooks and crannies of an oven are s*ds to clean. We have a self cleaning over and still need to ensure the nooks and crannies are clean after a cleaning cycle.

How about asking the manufacturer? Our oven (Neff) came with such rails. There are signs of white grease in the bearings. The manufacturer must know what they use at the factory. John

Agreed, but it may be difficult to clean completely; all depends on access and geometry.

WD40 is almost the same as white spirit. It's not a lubricant. Vegetable oils turn to very sticky gum, especially in high temps, the last thing you need. Oil is the problem, not the solution. Clean the thing out, don't relube it. Ammonia or caustic soda are the things to get baked grease out.

NT

My bosch oven uses lithium grease, its been fine for five years

Thanks all. Good advice as usual. Looks like first step is to try and get them clean. The ball bearings are internal and no obvious way of dismantling them. Our oven is a Siemens if anyone has experience of these.

A couple of you have suggested caustic soda. Any idea of ratio of caustic to water I should use? I can soak them for a while and see what happens.

Thanks

Lee

Siemens, Bosch and Neff all come from the same factory, so will use a lot of the same innards, cleaning procedures will be similar across the brands ...

Not on the rails, surely? Perhaps in the fan bearings, but of course these are in a cooler region (and probably have a designed cooling flow).

On the rails.

Just don't leave the rails in when using pyrolytic cleaning.

The online manual now says only use high temp food grade lubricants and gives a phone number to talk to support.

The original paper stuff said lithium grease as I remember but I haven't seen the paper stuff for years.

There is certainly a white grease on the ball bearings.

Hi All.

I was hoping to try cleaning them today but after a bit of googling the technique seems a bit varied. Some say cold water , some hot (unsure if this means boiling or not) and the rato of caustic soda to water seems more if a "bung some in". Anyone have experience of doing this and can clarify a bit?

Thanks

Lee