With 10 hours on my new tractor, I'm going through a basic maintenance once-over. I figured I'd hit all the grease points just to be thorough. This is my first experience with a grease gun, and I think I have figured out all of the wrong ways to reload it.
Wrong way #1: Mis-read the instructions and remove the base, then insert the cylinder, then try to push the plunger back in with a cylinder full of grease in the way.
Wrong way #2: Correctly remove the head before reloading, but forget to pull the plunger back, so that as soon as you remove the head, the plunger pushes the last leftover bit of grease in the gun out onto the ground.
I am running into a problem that is probably user error, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. As the gun starts to empty out, it won't push grease anymore. The handle gets spongy. So I open the gun up to put another cylinder in, but the problem is there's still enough grease in there left over from the last cylinder that the new cylinder won't go all the way in. So, clearly the gun wasn't empty. I have tried pressing the air release nozzle and pumping the handle to get the air out, and I have tried ... tapping it on something upside down to try to work the rest of the grease down towards the head. What should I be doing differently?
Thanks.
Now I'm going to go wash all this grease off me. Sheesh.
If you happened to drop the cartridge or if the case/box of tubes have been dropped, sometimes the plunger (spring loaded rubber chunk) won't start in the end of the cartridge. You may release the shaft and put spring pressure on the back of the plug but it really doesn't enter the cartridge or gets stuck part way in only allowing you to use some of the grease.
You will never use it all, even when working properly.
The least messy way is to:
1. Pull the plunger lever back and latch it.
2. Take the plastic cover cap off the end of the tube and be sure the cardboard isn't dented on the end.
3. Put the tube in the gun from the top with the open end toward the back of the gun.
4. Push it in all the way till the metal ring around the top end touches the top of the gun tube.
5. Peal back the thin metal cover on the top end of the grease tube.
6. Screw the head on the gun.
7. Unlatch the pull back rod and push it forward all the way. On some guns you have to twist it to release it from the plunger.
Work your lever a few times till grease comes out the nozzle.
8. If nothing comes out do the air release thing. If that doesn't work you may have to pull the rod back and push it forward again to release the air.
If it still doesn't work with any of the cartridges you may have got cheap grease that has the size of the cardboard a little off.
You can always scoop the grease out of the cartridge and put it in the gun with a putty knife if the cartridges are no good.
If you don't like grease all over your hands and under your nails, ( your nose will probably start to itch or someplace worse about this time) get some cheap hospital gloves to wear while your greasing:laughing: