Greasing your backhoe

[Mechanos]

How religious are you when comes to greasing your backhoe? I set out to grease my new-to-me used JD 7 backhoe for the first time... took about 4 hours! Apperantly, the previous owner(s) either didn't own a grease gun or didn't think it was an important task. I couldn't get about half of the zerks to take grease. I ended up having to remove all four of the bucket pins, the dipperstick hinge pin, and the boom hinge pin, remove all the zerks for those pins, clean out the rock-hard old grease from the zerks with a drill bit, clean the rock-hard old grease out of the grease passage below the zerk, clean out the pin holes and reassemble. I have all of them taking grease now, but the bucket pivot pin is shot and will need to be replaced.

 

[Artisan]

Man....gotta do it and regularly or you will pay...

Even my lil BX25, ya gotta grease or it will
start crying / making sounds that yell LUBE ME!

It can be a tough job just do it. I figured out how to make
a thankless task MUCH easier.

A pair of Nitrel Gloves, a rag and a good
grease gun is mandatory. My grease gun is
a pneumatic Lincoln w/ a sling and hose handle.
I tried to be cheap origionally, NOT the right way to go!

HERE is a thread on how I did it, works Great!

I believe that a guy should pull his pins once a year
and wipe them down, inside & out, pump grease into
pin while it is out and verify it is OK and check zerks
for tightness! Ya gotta look for failures and fix. Heck
putting it back together w/ a good coat of grease
will help a LOT where sometimes grease does not flow.

 

[bindian]

How religious are you when comes to greasing your backhoe? I set out to grease my new-to-me used JD 7 backhoe for the first time... took about 4 hours! Apperantly, the previous owner(s) either didn't own a grease gun or didn't think it was an important task. I couldn't get about half of the zerks to take grease. I ended up having to remove all four of the bucket pins, the dipperstick hinge pin, and the boom hinge pin, remove all the zerks for those pins, clean out the rock-hard old grease from the zerks with a drill bit, clean the rock-hard old grease out of the grease passage below the zerk, clean out the pin holes and reassemble. I have all of them taking grease now, but the bucket pivot pin is shot and will need to be replaced.

I grease my Bradco 511 about every 10 hours of operation. Sorry to hear you had to pull pins. When I have a fitting that won't take grease, I just move the backhoe to get it to take grease. Raise it all the way up, or just put pressure on it by pushing into the ground. Never fails to work for me.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Mechanos]

I grease my Bradco 511 about every 10 hours of operation. Sorry to hear you had to pull pins. When I have a fitting that won't take grease, I just move the backhoe to get it to take grease. Raise it all the way up, or just put pressure on it by pushing into the ground. Never fails to work for me.
hugs, Brandi

No amount of moving would have gotten these to take grease. The zerks were packed full of rock-hard dried out grease. Also the area under the zerk, but before the pin bore was also packed full of the same. On a couple of them I actually had to use a hammer and punch to knock the plug of crud out. There is no way you'd be able to force that much dried crud into the tight space between the pin and the bushing... then again, I wouldn't want to. I'd bet it's been 10-15 years since this thing was last greased.

 

[tcreeley]

I figure with my mini-backhoe- everytime I use it, I grease it first. No harm done and everything is moving on grease. I us a hand held gun.

 

[caver]

I had to do that a few weeks ago on my Case 580. Like you said rock hard grease/dirt where the grease comes out of the collar of the pin.

 

[bindian]

No amount of moving would have gotten these to take grease. The zerks were packed full of rock-hard dried out grease. Also the area under the zerk, but before the pin bore was also packed full of the same. On a couple of them I actually had to use a hammer and punch to knock the plug of crud out. There is no way you'd be able to force that much dried crud into the tight space between the pin and the bushing... then again, I wouldn't want to. I'd bet it's been 10-15 years since this thing was last greased.

I understand all that. Dried crud makes for hair pulling. I have seen this on old airliners. Douglass DC-ps were okay, as their zert fittings screwed in. Boeing's, however, press in. So old dried crud for grease and if you keep pumping it blows the fitting out and it sticks in your grease gun fitting. Makes it a real frustating, time consuming night. There is one hard to grease fitting on the top of our Boeing 737's main gear that hooks up to the retract actuator (cylinder). We have to install gear pins and remove that inch and a half pin to make sure it is greased up good and not getting any pitting once a year. A real pain in the but the first time you do it, but after 100s of times, it is easy.
hugs, Brandi

 

[case245]

i would say ever 10-20hours i grease my kubota fel and the rest 5 to 10 hours i owned an old 580b case

 

[CurlyDave]

Every zerk on the machine is greased every 10 hours of operation.

Now if I have managed to break a zerk, or one won't take grease, I will still use the machine that day, but I fix the problem before the next time I use it.