Proper Greasing techniques

[Wjt091]

Ok Im sure this will open a can of worms im younger and learning some of the tricks of the trade. With a grease gun what are proper techniques. Ive been yelled at for using to much grease not enough. Sealed bearings, open bearings, pins and bushings. Ive seen people just force grease in till it squirts out. Any proper way?

 

[Anonymous-0]

Normally I pump enough grease to push out the old. Tie rods, just enough to swell but not rupture the boot. Pins,bushings and unsealed bearings, just purge out the old grease. Always wipe excess grease because it will stain your paint, and cause dust and dirt to build up. The old timers say more than enough is better than none at all.

 

[guido]

Hello WJT091,
Most grease fitting will take 3 to 4 pumps. Be careful when greaseing ball joints and other ball end that have no releave Like a ballon. Keep waiting for the grease to come out on those units will blow them apart!.
Guido.

 

[lucas boy]

old timer taught me to lift the weight off of things to grease them, said it gets grease then.. lucas

 

[thurlow]

What part of "GET AN OPERATOR'S MANUAL" is not understood? There is no 'one size fits all'. The reason the old-timers over-greased was because they were dealing with babbitt or unsealed bearings or......more than likely, not what we think of as bearings, but bushings.

 

[Wjt091]

Unfortunalty the many times ive come across diffrent fittings the manuals dont tell you how much it just says to grease the following locations. And im real sure you learned to grease your equipment from a manual. Maybe im being silly but im also not stupid. Trust me the first place i look is the operators manual.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The most important step is before you put the grease gun on the zert. Throughly CLEAN the zert first so you dont pump dirt into what you are greasing. Also, for things like the main pivot pin that the front axle rests on, jack up tractor to remove weight so that grease will surrond the pin on the weight bearing side of the bushing. Another one is the front spindles, if you dont jack it up, no new grease will go where the major wear points are. Tom

 

[Wjt091]

would have never thought about taking weight off of an item to get grease all the way around. it makes sense thinking about it.

 

[Mike M]

I grease u-joints until I see fresh grease come out at all 4 caps. I think this is what I remember what the semi mechanics said to do. So far it has worked on my pick-up.

 

[buickddeere]

I've seen keeners ruin the ball bearings on Class II motor/generator sets.
Too much grease and the bearing over heats then fails.
Much screaming when one of the two "last resort" AC power supplies go down that run the nuclear reactor's computers, instruments and controls.

 

[Anonymous-0]

There was an article in a magazine a few years ago about the proper grease amounts. Reason for the article was a farmer had a new Deere combine that was eating bearings left and right. I think they said he went through over a dozen bearings in the first year! Checked everything, even the squareness of the machine. Finally before he headed out for the day a tech was there to see how and what he greased. He was using several tubes of grease each time. He was over greasing, pumping a dozen or better times on each zerk. So it is possible to over grease certain types of bearings at least. According to a Deere tech anyways!

 

[NcNE]

I understand where you're coming from. About the best I can give would be to take the item that receives the greese (bearing, bushing, joint, etc.) into consideration when greasing as each can have different needs. If you're in the dark as to how much to give, a good first step would be to look at the bearing or other and see if the previous person added grease till it squeezed out or if there isnt any residue. If its an option in your situation ask the mfg what the proper amount for that specific area is. Im glad you asked this question as there are many people who dont even think about greasing let lone think about the proper amount.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I tend to be one of the hated "overgreasers".

One exception - I had an inner front wheel bearing lock up on my John Deere. One that I thought I was faithfully greasing daily. Turns out I was not greasing it enough. The zerk is on the outside of the hub, and it takes a lot of grease to reach the inner bearing. I now pump the gun until I feel resistance, and then I know I have gotten grease into the inner bearing.

I know that gun grease is not the proper lubricant for wheel bearings, but it's the ONLY thing I've ever seen farmers use on tractor front hubs in my lifetime.

Paul

 

[snoop-nc]

UNDER greasing makes Grease Worms Squeal...LOL!!

 

[Anonymous-0]

I agree completly. CLEAN fitting first. Wire brush and grease rag are usually required. I believe every time I have allowed some one else to grease my stuff I have caught them abusing it by not cleaning the fittings first. The monroe shop the firestone store and the truckstops of America have all done this to me. This is one of my pet peeves. At the monroe shop I TOLD the manager to make sure they cleaned the fitting first and I watched the guy start to grease the front end without a grease rag. I then yelled to STOP him NOW. The manager and the mechanic acted like I was being unreasonable when I insisted he do the job right.

 

[kyhayman]

I learned the hard way to read the book, and follow it. Baler knotters, I pumped them full every day. The old grease picked up hay and chaff until I broke a knotter gear. Low and behold, one pump every 40 hours was what the book called for.

 

[GeneMO]

Know how many lawyers it takes to grease a combine?

Just one if you run him through real slow.

Gene

 

[Ron in Nebr]

One thing nobody mentioned, was something I learned from a friend of mine who's a heavy equipment mechanic in the road construction biz.

Those guys grease their machines at the END of the workday, right after they shut 'em off, not in the morning before they start. That way everything's warmed up from use and expanded a bit, and the grease is better able to flow where it's needed.

The post below about jacking things up to take the pressure off things is a very good point too.

 

[NCWayne]

Like many have said the first thing to try is look at the manual and go by the mfgs suggestions. The only thing about that is that th quality of some grease nowdays is alot better now than it was in years past so now a fitting that might have needed to be greased every day can now go two or more days because of the better grease...had one customer that switched greases on their crane and within a month it eat every bushing on it up because the grease wasn't woth a s--t. When we got it rebushed and got them on some good grease they were able to double the greasing intervals given by the factory before needing to grease again and were working on exteending them even more...This all goes to prove one thing, it pays to use good grease.
The main thing is don't under grease and don't over grease as both will kill a bearing. Under greasing, of course,does it by allowing metal to metal contact or as I've hear more than once letting the grease worms eat the bearing. Now over greasing can cause problems in several ways. One of these way is by blowing seals and allowing contaminates into the bearing or simply holding them in suspension around the joint and wearing out the joint itself, even if it doesn't get to the bearing. Another way having too much grease causes problems is that, strange as it sounds, the extra grease causes excess friction in the bearing causing it to heat up. I couldn't begin to give the particulars of how this happens to save me but suffice it to say I've seen it happen and know it does.

 

[KF]

At one time I was the Lubrication Engineer amoung other things at a large plant. Several things have to be taken into consideration. First, is the typt of bearing and the environment it is in. The lubrication for it will fit the application. There are many types of lubricants with specific uses. Some bearings are oil lubricated, some with grease and some are permanently sealed and run until failure. On high speed bearings the maunufacturer is by far the best place to start. They generally have a recommended grease with a lubrication period and the amount to be added. Most have done extensive testing and its worth following their recommendation. Heavy equipment also generally comes with recommended lubrication and the period of lubrication. In general, most greases that are used are not exotic. On some special applications an expensive synthetic grease may be recommended by the manufacturer. In my experience, don't take that likely as they have found out by experience what you don't want to find out, namely premature failure. Also, some helpful tips are to keep motors and equipment with greased bearings running every so often as the oil tends to separate from the grease base after long periods of being idle. If anything grease the bearing lightly and then start the equipment. Do not grease a ball or roller bearing while it is running. These bearings are kept from going metal to metal by an extremely thin layer of oil in the grease. Forcing grease into a running bearing overpressures one side and will cause the balls to stop rotating and slide rather than roll and put a small flat spot on the bearing which will lead to premature failure. We had some outside blowers at the plant that were constantly having bearing issues. What I discovered was this practice of pumping grease into the moving bearing until it was squirting out everywhere. When we changed that practice and the grease they were using, there had not been another bearing failure up to the time I left there. On shafts with plain bearings the grease should be renewed so that the old grease is shoved out. So one should lubricate until they see it squirt out of the bearing slightly.
Remember, grease and oil are cheaper than parts and down time. Take the time to lubricate and relubricate a bearing if being used over long periods in dirty conditions.

 

[bruster]

It does depend on what type of equipment you are lubing. OLD farm equipment had a lot of open end or babbit bushings, and these needed more grease than more modern bearings. You hardly find anyone correctly greasing the shackle bushings (lifted up, no pressure on pins) or king pin bushings (lifted up, turn wheels back and forth while greasing) on big trucks anymore. Common sense can play into this. If you rupture a seal or retaining cup with pressure, that opens a path for water and dirt to enter.

 

[Wjt091]

Id like to thank everyone for all teh information. This is exactly the type of info i was looking for. I learned alot of new things. Jim

 

[ohfred]

Didn't see any posters telling you to grease before putting up for the winter. Remember when you pump grease in the front spindles or ball joints and out came a few drops of water? You don't need it sitting in there all winter. Only other thing I can add about greasing is when something is used for food service, it has to be a special grease that won't harm you if it gets on the food. But, wheat, oats and such is in the food catagory but farmers don't abide by this rule...but I haven't heard of anybody dying from it. ohfred

 

[wijim]

Grease it til it farts alittle