How much Grease for FEL & Backhoe

MMH · Jun 7, 2012

When relubing an FEL & Backhoe, how much grease should be used? I pump grease in until I start seeing some start to ooze out the sides. THis takes between 6 to 10 pumps from a grease gun. Am I overgreasing?

Ductape · Jun 7, 2012

About the same as I do..... when there is a fair amount of grease coming out I stop pumping. I usually wipe off the excess, as I hate bumping into my tractor and getting covered with grease.

boggen · Jun 7, 2012

when i got the 555c TLB backhoe. you could really tell it was "over greased" as there was old grease all over the place. and it took some time to "over grease" and work out the old grease out of all the holes and off the pins.

once i got all the nasty grease out, i was able to cut back. in amount of grease i used. but due to how things are worn (pins are slightly smaller, and holes a little bit larger) from a new machine. there is some slop / play in things. so some things i have to grease, then move the machine / FEL / Backhoe and then grease a couple other places to help get grease in spots.

i try to keep grease down to min, so when i use the machine the grease does not "splatter" all over the place, when first using the machine / FEL / backhoe right after greasing. and keep up on routine smaller amounts of grease. vs trying to grease things up big time, and only greasing rarely.

for me i can really tell between when things were just greased up, vs needing to be greased up. there is a physical smoothness vs roughness of how things slide and roll. for the machine / FEL / backhoe. to much grease and things just "flop" all over the place. once the grease works it way out and over things, you have that nice touch of levelers and everything goes just right, then when the grease gets down to min or has been setting there without use, and try and operate you have some slight "jerkyness" of things.

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other words to above....
for FEL and Back Hoe, as long as all the pins / holes get a coating of grease over them all, after a little bit of use of FEL and backhoe. i am happy. it is the coating i care about. not amount that squeezes out and goops all over the place.

Cidertom · Jun 8, 2012

I wound up getting a bulk load air drive grease gun. After the amount of greasing manualy, my hands were tired. The FEL and bucket have 24 fittings alone.

Besides lube, one other reason to grease is to drive dirt out of the fittings. I lube until grease shows, and wipe off the excess.

One thing I did with the 448 BH: The back fittings on the swing cylinders were too much of a pain. Using extension hoses I extended the fittings to the side of the platform. Took a little work, but so much easier.

jenkinsph · Jun 9, 2012

boggen said:
i try to keep grease down to min, so when i use the machine the grease does not "splatter" all over the place, when first using the machine / FEL / backhoe right after greasing. and keep up on routine smaller amounts of grease. vs trying to grease things up big time, and only greasing rarely.

===========
other words to above....
for FEL and Back Hoe, as long as all the pins / holes get a coating of grease over them all, after a little bit of use of FEL and backhoe. i am happy. it is the coating i care about. not amount that squeezes out and goops all over the place.

I agree it is much better to grease frequently and consistently with small amounts of grease rather than less frequently with larger quantity of grease. All the grease you see externally is just collecting dirt.

megaboz · Jun 9, 2012

I like to grease about every 10 hours period, especially with cheap grease. Like others have said, just enough to push out some of the old and wipe the excess off, no since giving the dirt something to stick too.