I was doing my first maintenance on my Altmill and I cannot figure out how to get oil in the lower Z axis linear bearings because if you take the screw out to put oil in all the oil would fall out. I reference the manual which showed a picture of the type of oil that you’re supposed to use and I purchased that and all it said was put oil in it. So I open a support ticket to ask them how to do this. They came back and said you don’t put oil in there you put grease, that you don’t put oil anywhere. I then pointed out to them that their own documentation online specifically says to put oil in there and if you need to put grease in there, why did it not have a Zerk fitting? Then they said to put grease in there and that they would change their documentation. I cannot be the first person who’s ever questioned this, and I cannot believe their engineers when coming up with the maintenance for the machine mistakenly indicated Oil even to go as far as telling you exactly which oil to buy. And if it needed to have grease in it, it would have a Zerk fitting. My other ones have oil in them and I’m not sure what to do. I really don’t trust them. I don’t trust the person that I talked to by email I don’t trust that they know what they’re talking about? If they are correct, how did this go years unnoticed? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
@armypilot I don’t have an answer, Tom, but if you search the forum for “altmill lubrication”, you will get many hits. Perhaps you will find your answer there.
Does this help?
They show zerk fittings but I don’t know much about the AltMill.
EDIT: Sorry those fittings are for the ball screws, I guess. I don’t know if the linear bearings are different on the AltMill but on my LongMill I just put a couple of drops of 3 in 1 oil on the top of the bearing and move the axis up and down a couple of times.
I know these aren’t the bearings for the Z but I’m curious about the holes visible on the top of the bearings. Are those for oiling? My LM bearings don’t have a holes there.
@armypilot It looks like they modified their maintenance procedure. There’s no mention of oil in the new documents, just grease.
"Lubricate – Unfasten the outer button head screw from each linear guide block. Apply the grease using the grease gun. Then refasten the screw. "
I really don’t know how you’re supposed to apply grease to a small screw hole by using a grease gun.
@StephenCampbell @kellyz Care to chime in? Was the removal of oil from the maintenance schedule intentional? And how are you to apply grease in a screw hole?
I missed that! I’ll bow out now as I obviously don’t know jack about the AltMill. 
@Chucky_ott I know nothing about this, but that has never stopped me before. 
I have a couple of chains saws. The wheels on the ends of the saw are greased through a hole in the bar. There is no zerk fitting. The grease gun has a tapered end that covers the hole and pushes grease into the bar/wheel. Would this application be similar to your AltMill?
@gwilki I’ll have to try. I’m still using the previous method with oil.
@Chucky_ott I know that you won’t take my word for it, CO. I was simply trying to show that applications do exist where grease is applied under pressure to non-zerk fitting locations.
The grease gun that I have for my chain saws comes pre-loaded with grease, so I’m sure that it is not what you need for the AltMill.
Here it is simply to show you what I’m talking about.
@gwilki Understood. I guess the part that’s missing from the new document is the need for the needle tip or conical tip for the grease gun. Probably most people will assume zerk. They do say a grease gun with multiple fittings but they don’t say which ones.
I’ll have to see if I can find a conical tip to use with my existing zerk tip.
That said, I still have the Mobil Vectra way oil that they used to specify so I’ll use that until I run out. I don’t recall the cap screw being on the underside like the OP mentions.
@armypilot That document appears to have been superseded. The new one only specifies grease.
@Chucky_ott In reading my last post, it sounds like a was taking a shot at you CO. I didn’t mean it that way. Sorry. I meant to say that you would not simply take my word for it, that you would check things out for yourself.
PS Interesting set of grease tips. Where did you find them?
@gwilki I just googled “conical tip for grease gun” and found this on Amazon
And no worries. I’m not easily offended.
@armypilot Tom. I was not suggesting that you were mistaken. I don’t have an Altmill so I was simply trying to point you to previous discussions on Altmill lubrication.
It’s all good, I did not take it that way.
They said they were going to change it after I brought it up. I just can’t believe I wasn’t first one.
I made an assumption (that might get me in trouble later) that by keeping oil in the upper bearing blocks there would be adequate lubrication getting to the lower blocks. So far (2 years of moderate use) all is going well.
I see Avid has always done lithium grease on their linear bearing blocks and have a mini-grease gun along with tip and small grease cartridge for it that seems like it would work for Altmill as well:
Kind of related … The last time I checked the maintenance tips in g-sender (been a while since I have looked) it was talking about v-wheels? I can’t find any of those on my alt-mil…
Altmill doesn’t have those that is why 