Grease packing material

I'm cleaning the chassis parts for my '37 Buick and I took apart the clutch equalizer, it's the shaft the rod from the clutch pedal attaches to on the top and another shaft goes back to the clutch fork. Inside there is some kind of packing material, kind of like a rope. Does anyone know what this stuff is? I would assume it's there to take up room so there isn't a massive amount of grease in the tube but is also helps to retain grease inside the tube.

 

My 40 Buick had a felt washer there to retain and spread the lube. The bracket has a ball stud and there is a split spherical socket inside the equalizer tube. I think the tube itself is empty except for the grease. Pull that bracket out and check.

Dan

 

Mine also had the ball stud and the split socket was held in with a "C" clip. I didn't find any felt washer though, just the rope like material. Buick changed so much from year to year and model to model in these years maybe they used a rope of some type to prevent the grease from oozing out, maybe just to allow a small amount of grease to seep out to grease the split sockets at each end. Do you have any idea what this material could be?

 

i have a half roll of some of that stuff. I think it is just graphite packing rope.