How to Load and Use a Grease Gun
If you own a tractor, zero-flip mower, utility trailer, boat trailer, motorbike, or heavier piece of tools like a loader, excavator, or dump truck/trailer you have fittings that require to be greased so they run appropriately, but perhaps most importantly, do not fail in the course of use and help you save you from expensive repairs and wasted time.
Find out In which the Fittings Are
If you’re operating gear commercially (even if that’s just a weekend lawn route), it is in your finest desire to find out exactly where all the fittings are on your device(s) and to make guaranteed they are effectively lubed. It’s minutes and pennies pro-motion now vs . a pounds, days, and downtime response afterwards.
The moment you track down all the fittings (known as Zerk or Amelite) you’ll need to know how to load a grease gun then operate it safely and securely and correctly. Compared to, say, transforming a bathroom, this is an uncomplicated ability to acquire. But like any upkeep action, it ought to be accomplished with treatment.
Get to Know You Grease Gun
Imagine of a grease gun like a mash-up of a higher-stress caulk gun and a cordless drill. Grease is like caulk seriously sticky, gooey, not-easy-to-clean up caulk with packaging that can lay you open.
On the instrument itself, there is a plunger, the instrument overall body (or barrel), the actuator assembly (head), and a rigid nozzle or flexible hose at the conclusion of which is a coupler that seats on the Zerk. Some crank open and shut like a cordless drill’s 3-jawed chuck catches a drill bit shank. Some others are simply held on by hand-pressure. Which one particular works greatest for you is a make any difference of demo and mistake and choice.
Types of Grease Guns
There are lever-actuated grease guns, pistol-grip actuated grease guns and cordless battery-actuated grease guns.
For close to-the-dwelling use, pistol-grips are a good idea at a mid-vary price tag. You can maintain the hose or nozzle with a person hand and pump with the other. But in all scenarios, we’re talking about some stress. Cordless grease guns are pushing at up to 10,000-psi.
Out of the box, the grease gun may have a adaptable hose or a preset metallic tube. Both of those have their strengths and shortcomings in specific applications, and most mechanics and hefty gear operators stop up with at the very least just one of each.
Actions for Loading and Utilizing a Grease Gun
Prep
Comparable to portray a area, prospect favors the well prepared grease gunner. You’ll have to have quite a few rags useful, rubber gloves, and an effortlessly accessible trashcan.
Picking out Grease
The grease selected issues a whole lot, a undesirable alternative can get high-priced.
- All grease is not of equivalent high-quality. Only use high quality grease, it is the most inexpensive portion in the equipment no issue how significantly it prices for each tube.
- Use the ideal grease for the position. In contemporary products, specialty lubricants are from time to time specified. Check out with the manufacturer of the machines you are applying to get the appropriate suggestion.
- DO NOT Combine GREASE Styles except you know what you are carrying out. Chemical incompatibility in lubricants can destroy bearings quite promptly. Read through far more about determining grease compatibility, as very well as this resource, to comprehend the principle in better depth.
How to Load a Grease Gun
Most grease guns run on the similar theory mechanisms. Be certain to go through and fully grasp all the manufacturer’s directions in advance of use.
- Pull the plunger back (there is a spring within remaining compressed when you do this—this is important to know later on more on it underneath) and rest it on the capture in the instrument entire body.
- Unscrew system from the head.
- If the gun has an old grease tube in it, take out the tube. If the tube is jammed thoroughly and little by little release the plunger to force the tube out. Re-latch the plunger when you can get a grip on the tube.
- Test that the gasket that seals the tool overall body to the actuator head has not gotten buried in grease and thrown away with the old tube.
- On the new tube, remove the plastic cap and insert the tube into the tool—open conclusion toward the plunger.
- Take away the pop-major or foil. This lid is astonishingly sharp, be conscious.
- Re-assemble the software.
- For instruments with no bleeder valve, the device should be primed, or burped, to get any air out. Thread the unit back again alongside one another and back again it off just one turn. Release the plunger. You may truly have to force it down through the grease. Tighten the tool and dispense grease onto a piece of cardboard until eventually it flows burp-free. If the manage does not resist the strain you place on it, there is air in the resource. Keep pumping till the stream is uninterrupted.
- For units with bleeder valves, the air can be evacuated through the valve.
How to Use a Grease Gun
Normally thoroughly clean off the Zerk fitting with a rag just before putting the grease gun coupler on it or you are pumping contamination into the bearing assembly.
A Zerk is a mix ball valve and verify valve. The grease gun depresses the ball (small ball bearing) making it possible for grease to pass. When you get rid of the instrument a spring pushes the ball back into the opening, sealing it. If the bearing does not return and grease leaks out, there could be particulate make a difference obstructing its correct procedure and you should really get a new Zerk.
Below standard use, pump in enough grease that you hear escaping pressure and see just a very little little bit of grease movement squeeze out of the assembly. Essentially, you’re replacing the outdated grease with new grease.
Really do not just preserve pumping in grease, having said that. You may possibly also test with your tools dealer’s service office about strategies for how greatest to grease the fittings. Wipe off any excess grease.
If the wheels are submerged in water (like boat trailers) it’s far better to set up a hub greasing technique like Bearing Buddy, which makes upkeep less difficult.
Any time you are greasing something that has a pinch point or can fall (specially dump trucks and booms on tools), possibly have them in the lowered situation or propped up with an authorised strut to prevent harm.
Ongoing Use
Even the best grease guns will inevitably leak at the plunger. If you attempt to pull back again on the plunger and it does not shift very easily, end. This possibly signifies that grease is guiding the plunger seal, and if you persist, that grease will arrive out the back again of the gun all around you and the store ground.
Go above to the trash can, get some clean up rags useful, unscrew the cap above the trash can, and established the cap aside. Pull the plunger back again more than the trash can so the grease at the rear of the plunger goes there.
Now you can reload as described earlier mentioned.