Greasing MMM

   / Greasing MMM #1  

Hootie

Gold Member
Joined
May 31, 2002
Messages
261
Location
SW ARK
Tractor
Kubota BX2200, Kubota ZD 221, Kubota Grand L 5030 HSTC, Kubota RTV, Polaris 500ATP
When greasing the MMM (mine is 60") spindles are we suppose to "pump it to it" until it will take no more or what?

Thanks!
 
   / Greasing MMM #2  
You should see old grease being pushed out around the fitting (not the zerk your grease gun is pumping in to!) you are greasing. If the grease is just exuding from the gun, it's possible the zerk fitting is clogged. Unscrew it and clean using air pressure or spray solvent through it. Or, replace the zerk fitting.
When you see the fresh grease coming out of the fitting, you know you've adequately lubricated that fitting.
 
   / Greasing MMM #3  
Hootie,

I started a thread about this very topic a couple of weeks ago. The consensus was a couple of pumps every time you mow certainly wouldn’t hurt anything. Someone stated that the cups that cover the blades on the underside of the deck were full of grease, if you’re wondering where the excess grease might be going.

Jim
 
   / Greasing MMM #4  
Living in Florida we have a lot of sand down here. My dealer made it a point to tell me that when I greased the spindles every 5 hours, to keep pumping the new grease til the old grease was out. Justification for this was that sand would get up in there and grind the spindle down. Hence the new grease would push the sand out. I am guessing that grease is cheaper than $100+ spindles, so will take his advice.

Regards,
Frank
 
   / Greasing MMM #5  
The dealer said no more than 2-3 pumps, each mowing. He says people 'blow out the seals' as often as letting the spindles dry out and go bad. I think you just want a gradual flow of new grease in, old grease out, over time... and a few pumps will do that.

Grease the rest of the deck annually.

- Patrick W.
 
   / Greasing MMM #6  
<font color=blue>He says people 'blow out the seals'</font color=blue>

At that point, I'd have had to ask him to show me one of the new seals he was talking about. Now mind you, I don't know about that MMM, and I know that 45 years ago some people worried about a grease monkey blowing out the seals on the tie rod ends on their cars (occasionally, though infrequently, had a customer who wanted to watch me grease his car and wanted me to use the manual grease gun instead of the air powered one), but I've never seen a seal on a mower spindle. I'm certainly not saying such doesn't exist, but I'm skeptical.
 
   / Greasing MMM #7  
Agreed, I doubt there is a rubber lip seal on either end of the shaft.. he may have been speaking generically. Maybe just his way of saying not to overdo it.

I have seen tie-rod and other front-end seals blown out though... though they usually leak around the bottom first.

- Patrick W.
 
   / Greasing MMM #8  
From my experience with mower decks, I don't think you can over do it, but you can certainly under do it (and I have - on one deck/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif). Of course, I guess different grease guns put out different amounts of grease, but with my current air powered grease gun, I found that the spindles on my 3-point finish mower needed 6 shots each, and I didn't have any surplus falling out anywhere either.
 
   / Greasing MMM #9  
Bird, Before I had my Kubota, I had a Power King with a 5' mower. If I put too much grease in the mower spindles they would tighten up, and you could not turn the blades by hand. I had to take out the grease fitting to release the pressure.
Bud
 

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