Grease Zerks?

Indian MC · Sep 30, 2016

Grease locations and Zerk fittings.
Has anyone thought of round plastic caps to cover the grease locations on the FEL and Backhoe?
Cheap plastic caps, that would secure similiar to the teeth on early automobile hub caps.
Push them in, pop, them off with a screwdriver.
No worries of crap filling up those locations in between greasing.
Also, as you pull them off to grease, you could count how many you take off in comparison to how many fittings you know you have.
This way you would notice if you may have missed a few.

RickB · Sep 30, 2016

Some equipment has them. Generally they are regarded as a waste of plastic and a temporary item at best. After the serve to keep paint off the business end of a zerk during manufacture, they are pretty much useless.

If you can't remember where the zerks are on a machine, how do you expect to remember how many caps there are? If a cap is missing, does that mean the zerk doesn't count?

sandyc · Sep 30, 2016

Amazon sells them. I use them on the mid drive shaft u joints and snow blower shaft. Keeps dirt out until the ground freezes

repete · Sep 30, 2016

I keep a supply of zerk fittings in the shop of various sizes for the inevitable one that gets cracked off between servicing. Since they do not rust, I simply wipe them off with a clean rag prior to greasing and then wipe off the excess grease after greasing.

Another thing I do is to "unload" the joint. By that I mean for instance placing the bucket on the ground a putting a slight down force on the bucket front edge. Since this is not its normal working position on the pins, the grease is forced into the area where the most wear occurs. You can do this with most any loader zerk or backhoe zerk. It just requires a little studying to understand

oldpilgrim · Sep 30, 2016

RickB said:
Some equipment has them. Generally they are regarded as a waste of plastic and a temporary item at best. After the serve to keep paint off the business end of a zerk during manufacture, they are pretty much useless.

If you can't remember where the zerks are on a machine, how do you expect to remember how many caps there are? If a cap is missing, does that mean the zerk doesn't count?

My tractor came with them.. annoying and useless.

holeycow · Sep 30, 2016

Leave grease on zerks after greasing. Imo. They wipe off clean the next time you grease. They never rust. The little ball never seizes. And it saves 1/2 of the nipple wiping.
Unless you like to wipe nipples twice as often as necessary.

Oh; and those caps go in the round file.

repete · Oct 1, 2016

holeycow said:
Leave grease on zerks after greasing. Imo. They wipe off clean the next time you grease. They never rust. The little ball never seizes. And it saves 1/2 of the nipple wiping.
Unless you like to wipe nipples twice as often as necessary.

Oh; and those caps go in the round file.

I can see the logic in this as well. Wiping the grease off after greasing is probably just for aesthetics. The greatest reason for grease fitting failure in my opinion is lack of regular grease that allows rust and debris to jam the fitting from the working side hole to the point where it will not take grease. My joints look horrible but take grease every time.

Gem99ultra · Oct 1, 2016

Indian MC said:
Grease locations and Zerk fittings.
Has anyone thought of round plastic caps to cover the grease locations on the FEL and Backhoe?
Cheap plastic caps, that would secure similiar to the teeth on early automobile hub caps.
Push them in, pop, them off with a screwdriver.
No worries of crap filling up those locations in between greasing.
Also, as you pull them off to grease, you could count how many you take off in comparison to how many fittings you know you have.
This way you would notice if you may have missed a few.

yeah, I bought a sack full of those pretty little yellow plastic caps. Sure looks good on a nice pretty clean and polished tractor. That is... until you use it

The little snap on covers are pretty much as one time use thing, mostly for looks. They won't stay on for a second use though.

Best place to use those might be down around where the dirt is always caked up. I've delegated mine to use on the lawn mower, until I run out of them. oh... and I won't be re-ordering.