I don't recall. At the time, I had no experience with astro scopes, and no idea what was good or bad. I just looked through it one time. I was not aware of any problems with the bearings or oil pumps. As far as I knew, they worked just fine at that time. (1958)
The sucker certainly looked massive and solid. There was a constant, low drone from the oil pumps. RA & Dec were under control of a hand-held box with push buttons. All motions seemed extremely smooth, although I was too naive to spot a subtle problem if it were not pointed out to me.
> How was the scope used at Cal Tech? Who used this scope?
In the survey astronomy course, Prof. Jesse Greenstein took us up to the scope one night to do some actual observing -- to supplement course work, such as calculating mass and orbital information of spectroscopic binaries. (Survey courses at Cal Tech tend to cover stuff not usually covered in most survey courses. <g>)
I have no idea if the scope was used in any other way. It might not have been, because the professors and grad students there had access to the 200" Palomar scope, plus the 100" & other scopes on Mt. Wilson. Both fairly close. OTOH, the scope _did_ seem to be in perfect working order, so maybe it _was_ used more regularly.
-- Gerry