Bearing grease vs. Chassis grease?

[ammodram]

Hi all -

Having read a bunch of old posts here on grease, I still have a very basic question. I think I've gotten the general picture that a good quality lithium-complex based moly grease is a good general purpose chassis grease, especially useful for FEL pins and other high-load applications.

I'm sure I've missed something, but what about "bearing grease"? The manual for my old Kubota L245DT specifically refers to "bearing grease" when talking about greasing wheel hubs and clutch release hub, but uses the term "chassis grease" elsewhere, for the axles, etc.

Should there be a distinction here, or is this just another artifact of the spotty English these old Kubota manuals are written in?

Is there anywhere on this tractor/FEL that I should not use a moly grease, including the hubs mentioned above? What about on the brush hog?

Pardon the ignorance of a greenhorn.

Thanks
Matt

 

[1586]

Having a wide range of farm equipment I admit to being a bit picky on grease specifically for the application. My front line grease is high quality conventional high temp lithium in a Lincoln power grease gun. It gets use on most everything including loader pins, bearings, front axles on tractors/trucks. You can use a lithium for about anything. Also I keep a hand gun full of a moly base grease (AKA chassis lube) that is specified on my Case IH combine. Also use it on occasion for loader pins but never use it for bearings! Also keep a gun full of Amsoil Synthetic grease for the combine and other high dollar machines with bearings and a gun with a thin gearbox type grease. So to answer your question don't use moly in bearings. A good lithium grease will serve you fine for everything you will use it for.

 

[DieselPower]

One grease should be fine for you. For the average person the only thing they ever have to worry about is if the grease is for use in disc brake wheel bearings on cars and trucks. Grease used on disc brake wheel bearings needs to have a higher dropping point (when it melts) than anywhere else on a vehicle. The wheel bearings on a vehicle with disc brakes can get very hot so a higher operating temp grease is called for than most other applications. A tractor really doesn't have anything this hot so one good quality grease will handle all your applications both as a "bearing" and "chassis" grease.

 

[ammodram]

Thanks guys - The terminology was confusing my unecessarily, it seems.

I'm happy to only have one type of grease to worry about keeping on hand. Will go out and look for a decent lithium moly grease for general purpose use on the tractor.

-Matt

 

[CurlyDave]

Way back when, I remember hand packing wheel bearings with something called "fibered wheel bearing grease".

It had short fibers of some sort in it which helped it stay in the bearings longer. Do a google search on "fiber wheel bearing grease" and you will find a few references to it.

Lately I have bought a few trailers which have zerk fittings for the wheel bearings. If it has zerks, I pump a high temp premium grease into it. If it doesn't I suppose I would hand pack with wheel bearing grease, which usually has the fibers.

For about the past 10 years or so I have just bought a can of disk brake wheel bearing grease when I needed it. Usually I throw the can away after a few years because they are cheap and lubricant specs keep getting better & better every year or so.

 

[AKfish]

Whoa... CurlyDave --- hand packing wheel bearing's --- I thought I was the only guy, so old that he remembers doin' somethin' like that...!

Fill yer palm up with a big 'ol lump of grease and squish the face of the bearing down into it and then keep walkin' the face of the bearing around and around until most of the grease is gone.

(Those fibers were probably asbestos...)

AKfish

 

[firedog]

So there's three of us, huh?

hand packing wheel bearing's

 

[Runner]

....make that four....

 

[BTI]

Five
Maybe thats why I like working on tractors more than cars and trucks

BTI

 

[chh]

Hey guys I remember doing that and I'm not that old.