Cleaned and Re-Greased DEC worm block

Following the instructions in Bisque’s video, I removed the Declination worm block, cleaned all the grease out of the drive gear and the worm gear, and re-greased. Because of our winters, I used MolyKote 33, which is rated for lower temperatures than the standard Lubriplate 103 that Bisque normally uses.

First, remove the OTA from the mount (so it doesn't crash when, removing the gear block, the mount becomes able to freewheel on that axis).

To uncover the Dec worm block, there are 4 screws to be removed on the underside.

After removing the screws, slide the cover off the Declination worm block.

Here is the Declination worm gear assembly removed from the mount. The motor cable seen on the left, needs to be disconnected.

The cable is disconnected and the worm assembly set aside, while we start by cleaning the worm gear still inside the mount.

Click to enlarge and you can see how plugged the gear teeth are with dirty old grease.

Clean the old grease out of the drive gear with a dry toothbrush and paper towel.

Here is the drive gear after cleaning, ready for re-greasing.

Next, clean the old grease out of the worm gear itself.

Here is the cleaned worm gear.

I forgot to take photos of the re-greasing process. I just used the tip of a clean finger to work a small amount of new grease into the teeth of both gears, rotating both through their full rotation to make sure no section was missed.

I then reassembled the Dec worm block into the mount and reset the cam stop and spring plungers to factory spec, and ran the Dec motor through 10 end-to-end exercise runs. I ended up backing the spring plungers off 1/8-turn more than the lower end of the recommended range, to eliminate a slight binding noise I could hear in the exercise. (The manual specifies 2.5 to 3.5 turns back from bottom. I ended up using 2-5/8 back from bottom.)

Next I’ll do the same procedure with the RA block.