zerks/grease help

[NOOBinOR]

In the process of replacing all of the zerks and greasing. Not going so well.

The 5 zerks down by the tracks were mostly good - I can't see what's going on there, if grease is going everywhere, but most of 'em would take 6 pumps and one I gave 10 as an experiment. But a few won't take any grease at all. I removed one of the new zerks and shoved a nut pick in there and diddled it around, no obstructions that I could feel and came back with lots of the old and pretty clean looking grease.

I figured that these are not closed bearings or anything like that, so what's likely to be the problem if they will take no grease?

Seems like it's not been maintained for years so my plan was to just regularly pump in new grease and force out the old gunk over time.

The zerks on the loader pins are no mystery, I can see what's going on there - pumped grease into the lowers no problem, but the uppers seem to be gummed up good and won't take any lube at all. Short of disassembly, what can I do to get the old grime outa there? I've got:

pb blaster lubricant
pb blaster penetrant
wd-40
brake cleaner
carb cleaner
various other oils...

What would you do?

I know the right thing to do is disassemble and clean thoroughly but I have no time for that now, I need to get some dirt moved before the rains set in and I'm a li'l old lady and will need muscle help to disassemble. That would be a good winter project when we're soggy for so long.

Thanks!

 

[jaxs]

You are on the right track in cleaning hard caked stuff out. PB Blaster would be my choice but atf + Acetone is a close second. I've never tried it but you might put a few oz of penetrating oil in a grease gun and try pumping it in under pressure.

 

[NOOBinOR]

Thanks, jaxs! Found a nifty thing to inject a lighter oil/penetrant under pressure on youtube, $45 on amazon but a week to get here so I said to heck with it, let's go for the big guns.

I put a nozzle on the pb penetrant and sprayed 4 of 'em, started up the rig and moved 'em around, put in the new zerks and voila! 4 squirts had grease leaking out of the bushings. I'll use it for awhile to let that all get distributed and keep adding grease every week or so'till it's clean.

Waiting for the heat of the day to pass to get to the rest of 'em.

Now I know! I like to learn something new just about every day.

 

[seville009]

I used heat from one of those handheld propane torches (blue bottle) to melt old grease in zerks that were clogged. Read about doing that on here; works great.

 

[NOOBinOR]

Appreciate the suggestion, but I'm a chicken with applying fire and this is a painted surface, probably f up the paint (or rather, what's left of it) by the time it got warm enough to do anything to the gunk inside... I can see how this might be good for a gunked zerk tip...

 

[seville009]

Appreciate the suggestion, but I'm a chicken with applying fire and this is a painted surface, probably f up the paint (or rather, what's left of it) by the time it got warm enough to do anything to the gunk inside... I can see how this might be good for a gunked zerk tip...

Only have to heat it for a few seconds…..was surprised because I was concerned about the same thing.

Can try it on one that is more hidden/not painted.

 

[Raul-02]

In the process of replacing all of the zerks and greasing. Not going so well.

The 5 zerks down by the tracks were mostly good - I can't see what's going on there, if grease is going everywhere, but most of 'em would take 6 pumps and one I gave 10 as an experiment. But a few won't take any grease at all. I removed one of the new zerks and shoved a nut pick in there and diddled it around, no obstructions that I could feel and came back with lots of the old and pretty clean looking grease.

I figured that these are not closed bearings or anything like that, so what's likely to be the problem if they will take no grease?

Seems like it's not been maintained for years so my plan was to just regularly pump in new grease and force out the old gunk over time.

The zerks on the loader pins are no mystery, I can see what's going on there - pumped grease into the lowers no problem, but the uppers seem to be gummed up good and won't take any lube at all. Short of disassembly, what can I do to get the old grime outa there? I've got:

pb blaster lubricant
pb blaster penetrant
wd-40
brake cleaner
carb cleaner
various other oils...

What would you do?

I know the right thing to do is disassemble and clean thoroughly but I have no time for that now, I need to get some dirt moved before the rains set in and I'm a li'l old lady and will need muscle help to disassemble. That would be a good winter project when we're soggy for so long.

Thanks!

Try a grease hammer.
You can get 'em from Amazon

 

[NOOBinOR]

Yeh, I may fall back to that. Just sprayed penetrant and had some success, figured I'd put a few hours on it and some movement to break up the gunk on the 3 remaining bad ones and try another round of spray. If that doesn't work I'm gettin' one of those.

Thanks!