Pivot Pin won't take grease

[LJH]

JD 3120 TLB w/447 backhoe. The pivot pin between the boom & stick wouldn't take grease.

Baby John is new to me and the first few times I greased her I missed that zerk as it's pretty well hidden. Found it last time and it wouldn't take grease (pneumatic grease gun). Replaced the zerk and it still wouldn't take grease. OK, figured the pin was somehow trashed, ordered a new one and installed it this morning. Old pin was dry & a bit rusty but not damaged at all and it cleaned up perfectly so I have a spare, for all the good it's doing me -

Still won't take grease. WTF?

 

[Don87]

Pull the pin back out(if it's not too hard), and be sure you can pump grease in without the pin in there. Sometimes the zerk doesn't go the entire way through the hole to the pin, and the hole gets clogged.

Don't know about yours, but I have seen pins that had to have a groove lined up with the grease zerk hole, or it wouldn't take grease.

 

[Scooby074]

First try moving the boom and stick around a bit. Try it on the ground with pressure and without. Sometimes all it takes is finding that sweet spot where there is just the right amount of weight on it.

Secondly, i dont know what your using for a greese gun, but sometimes it takes many thousand PSI on the gun to get into the joint. I use a manual Lincoln 1134 that generates 7000Psi and there have been times Ive wished for more.

Thirdly you can try a Zerk cleaner tool and see if that helps but if you put in a new zerk and pin I doubt it will.

 

[PILOON]

Gently tapping the little ball in the zerk often works, also heating the zerk melts dried up grease.

 

[LJH]

Yeah, I was kinda expecting a groove too, but nope. It's no biggie to yank it back out; minor PITA getting the second holes lined up as you drive the new pin in behind the old one, but some wiggle/jiggle and a few choice words and it's done. Never occured to me to check if the zerk hole was clear, duh, thanks for that suggestion!

I stuck a brand new zerk in this but will file the tapping/heating thing for future reference. :thumbsup:

After replacing the pin this morning I dug a diversion ditch to protect our newly-poured concrete driveway from being undercut and no sooner got BJ backed into the shed when all hail broke loose and it poured for hours. Gee, I love having a tractor in the family! If it's not still monsooning in the morning I'll mess with it some more as Jason suggests, fingers crossed. Thanks you guys!

BTW, I'm using a pneumatic Lincoln griz gun with 6000 psi. I bought it for Baby John for our one-month anniversary. :laughing:

 

[LD1]

I like to keep a hand operated grease gun for stubborn joints. I like the feel better.

When you say it aint taking grease, is grease comming out around the zerk, like the gun aint seated right, or is it just stalling out your pneumatic gun??

 

[NVArt]

Started a small job recently when my 1310 Ford was already way overdue for FEL grease maintenance.
Small job turned bigger job (they almost always do)
When finally through, was doing the overdue greasing and two zerks wouldn't pass grease. I knocked the pins out about 3/8 of an inch---just enough to change their position. Voila! Like a Christmas goose! Knocked the pins back in a little at a time; greasing every "knock". By the time they were tight, they still wasted grease going through them.
What do they say?--Paint and grease are the poor man's friends?

 

[Dr_Zinj]

I like to keep a hand operated grease gun for stubborn joints. I like the feel better.

When you say it aint taking grease, is grease comming out around the zerk, like the gun aint seated right, or is it just stalling out your pneumatic gun??

/laugh

I remember the first time my father handed me a grease gun to do the zerks on his old tractor. I hooked it up and started pumping away, watching carefully until the grease started oozing out to know it was done. I must have pumped for 15 minutes before I went back to him and said something was wrong with it.

Then he showed me how to load the grease in the gun first.