Can I grease too much?

[rockinbbar]

How many of you have an electric grease gun?

I use my DeWalt daily, and hit about 14-16 grease fittings on my batwing cutters. Additional fitting on the tractor and loader as needed.

Love the DeWalt! Much better than my Lincoln that got retired when I got it.

 

[SmallChange]

I grease each point until I either see fresh grease escaping or I have pumped the gun 3 times. I am for once per 8 hours of use, but it's a soft judgement -- more if I've been in wet or gritty conditions, less when for example using the pallet forks when the loader arms stay clean and dry. And my machine lives in a closed barn bay, not out in the weather.
It doesn't seem to me that there is anything especially significant about seeing grease escaping. There are four places for it to escape on many of the joints, and I'm only seeing it escape at one of the four in many cases. Once it's coming out the path of least resistance, there's not much to make it follow a different path. For most of the paths, it's therefore impossible to grease until I see it escaping. Besides that, there's no one viewpoint that can see all the way around a given path's exit points.
If it were absolutely critical, they could design a system with paths through each of multiple bearings, and each escape path could have its own valve, and you could flush every path on every joint. But it doesn't seem as though it's anywhere near that critical.
I do scoop some of the excess escaped grease out, so that grease turds don't wind up falling on my barn bay floor, which is paved with asphalt. I don't want the grease attacking the floor. Besides, who needs to be tracking it into the house?

 

[90cummins]

Grease is cheaper than downtime.
90cummins

 

[MH8675309]

A little often is better than allot once in a while - I can think of a few other things that are that way too

 

[arrow]

I have the cheaper Ryobi battery powered one but it can still push out the old stuff.
I grease more than I used to just to justify what I paid for the Ryobi.

 

[kozal01]

For pins Id say no but it depends on the use. Also it maters if the machine is stored outside or not. If it lives outside it should be greased more often.

 

[scootr]

I use the old manual grease gun ~ I never grease too much
When I see it come out I stop...if you do this regularly 3 pumps should do it.
Any more and it's wasted on the floor. I had a pneumatic gun years ago... it was a pain in the butt.
The battery jobs look neat but honestly at this age I need to do some things manually to stay fit.

 

[Hay Dude]

Just because you run your tractor 10 hours, it doesn’t mean your loader needs greased lol

No if you run your tractor and at the same time run your loader hard for 10 hours, then you might need grease.

 

[Bill_B]

One thing worth mentioning. You should try to grease the FEL with the different sections in a "relaxed position" so the bucket laying on the ground or on a prop. This takes the tension off from the main pins, the lift cylendar pivot points, etc. Allowing the grease to more easily get in where it is most needed.
You may think I'm full of crap but on my tractor I kept greasing it but still kept getting squeeking and chatter from the main pins until I used this technique then it went away.

 

[Hay Dude]

Grease is cheaper than downtime.
90cummins

It is until you have 100+ grease points, then it becomes a significant amount of time spent greasing.
I am at the point of having 3 DeWalt cordless grease guns. One in my truck, one in my baling tractor and another in my loader tractor. The batteries seem to last forever in the grease guns, so it has worked out great.
I’m pretty diligent about greasing and must be doing a good job because I have only had 1 u-joint failure in 20+ years and don’t even think it was lack of grease.
Never had a loader pin failure. Not even a squeak.