grain drill care

I've been using my JD grain drill each fall. I've been cleaning it each fall after use. It is a galvanized box, but many parts are not galvanized. Some of those are pretty rusty and it seems the rust may be spreading to the galvanized parts.
Last year after using it I sprayed some oil on all non-galvanized parts in the grain boxes. Those parts were still oily this fall. Seed (beardless winter wheat) stuck to the oily parts.
Do I just put up with some of the seed sticking to the non-galvanized parts, or do I try to clean the oil off and then what do I do? Please bear in mind the weather is cool and I don't have a heated shop in which to work.
Ideas?
 
My Dad always cleaned all the seed out of the drill and all fertilizer, washed the drill out with a hose and left in the sun to dry. He pulled all the plates and distributing wheels out and put them in oil. He would take a paint brush and oil the entire seed and fertilizer box. That was winter storage. In the spring some varsol and a paint brush to clean all the oil away and hot water and soap. That drill is from the late 1950?s and it is still up in the barn. I think I could have it ready to go in a couple of hours if I had to. Over the years I have poured oil into the boxes.
 
Interesting topic as I am dealing with a JD 8300 that has some box rust. The manual never specified any agent to coat the box with. All was fine with rinsing the box out until dad started using a red seed treatment on wheat. After that rust started showing in the seams. I thought maybe using some vegetable oil to coat the box once the repair was made. Hot water power wash with soap to prepare prior to using.
 
I had to free one up and I used liquid wrench to free it up after drilling with it the boxes were still oily but the seed, triticale did not stick to it . The owners manual says to use diesel to coat the boxes and feeds with . You could use brake clean to clean off the oily residue
 
I clean out the left over seed, vacuum it out well with a shop vac,, and my Case and Kirshman/Melroe drills are just fine, the old IH press drills we used 40 years ago for the last time w2e always sprayed down with dsl fuel inside the box, that kept them turning free, BUT those drills have metal seed tubes so dsl does not affect them, if I was going to do that on my later drills I would have to remove ever rubber tube, to prevent that, dsl keeps things lubed but seed does not stick to them like oil
cnt
 

Oil it down in the fall and wash the oil out when you need to use it. Not that big a deal to do the wash out. Far, far better to have to clean a little oil than to have a drill rust up. Ask anyone that's got an inoperative fertilizer box!
 
we have been using used hydraulic oil to paint everything that is used with fertilizer (after washing out and drying of course). The hydraulic oil doesn't deteriorate rubber parts (drop hoses) like motor oil does. Can use an oily rag to wipe everything else down. Never seem to need to flush out before using next time. Paul
 

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