Nine points and nine different clocks running at once

A car seen from directly above, drawn as a plain outline. Nine numbered arrows land on it, each pointing at a single point on the chassis. A key beneath, headed miles between, gives a figure for each one. Fold creases run across the whole thing.

Nine points, and no two of them are due at the same time.

What is a lubrication chart actually for?

Telling you where grease goes and how long each application is expected to last.

Every point on the diagram — engine oil, gearbox, rear axle, steering box, king pins, spring shackles, wheel bearings, distributor, dynamo — wears differently, because each one carries a different load and runs at a different temperature. The chart exists because "grease it regularly" isn't an instruction anybody can act on; a figure against each point is.

Why do the nine intervals span such a wide range?

Because the parts under the most repeated stress need the most frequent attention, and the chart doesn't pretend otherwise.

The king pins and spring shackles are due every 1,000 miles — small, hard-working joints that flex on every corner and every bump. Engine oil, steering box, distributor and dynamo sit at 3,000. Gearbox and rear axle stretch to 6,000. Wheel bearings run longest, at 12,000. Reading the chart straight down the column, rather than picking a single number to apply everywhere, is the entire skill it's teaching.

Why does the chart fold out instead of sitting flat on the page?

Because the diagram needed more room than a normal book page gives it, and somebody decided the diagram won, not the binding.

A plan view with nine labelled arrows needs to stay legible at a size a standard page can't offer without shrinking the labels below use. The fold-out is the compromise: the page stays part of the book, but for the one drawing that actually matters, the book gets bigger for a moment — the same book that, further on, collects a stamp for each visit this chart was consulted at.

What does a good version of this chart get right?

Enough arrows to be honest about how many points there are, and few enough that the diagram still reads as a car rather than a diagram.

Nine is a workable number on a shirt. The temptation is to simplify it down to three or four headline points, which flatters the design but loses the thing that makes the original worth having — that maintaining a machine properly means tracking several unrelated schedules at once, not one.

Who owns a lubrication schedule like this?

Nobody. A greasing interval is a mechanical fact about wear, not a piece of writing anyone can claim.

What is owned is a manufacturer's own published chart, badge and model name — licensable the usual way if a real vehicle is the point of the shirt. An invented outline with invented points sidesteps that question entirely and gives the wearer a chart that's actually theirs, for whichever car they had in mind.

Does this suit a car the wearer actually keeps on this kind of schedule?

That's exactly who it's for.

Anything old enough to need grease applied by hand rather than sealed for life — a specific car somebody maintains themselves, on a schedule they've internalised well enough to know which point is due next without checking. It also works as a record of the discipline itself: keeping several overlapping intervals straight is the same kind of held-in-the-head knowledge a co-driver relies on, just at walking pace instead of at speed.

Does it print well?

Yes — a plan outline and numbered arrows are exactly the kind of flat, hard-edged artwork that survives fabric well.

Sepia for the outline keeps it close to an actual manual page; red for the arrows and the shortest intervals draws the eye to the points that need attention soonest. Nine labels is enough text that it should be set larger than a real chart would, with the fold creases kept as a light line rather than a heavy fold mark that competes with the diagram.

How do I get one made?

Describe your chart at JustOG — the outline, how many points, and which intervals matter to you. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Nine arrows on one outline, and every one of them due on a different day.