To grease or not to grease, that is the question!

   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #1  

HawkinsHollow

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2019
Messages
1,730
Location
SE TN
Tractor
Branson 3015R
I just got a used tree puller and there are no grease fittings on it. The 2 pivots for the hydraulic cylinder are kind of open and I could see lots of dust and dirt getting in there. The larger pivot for the jaw is a bit more closed and protected. My question is should I still grease the 3 pivots? Will I just be creating more wear in those open pivots by the grease creating a grinding paste? The upside is those pivots are VERY easy to service. I am thinking about adding a grease fitting to the larger jaw joint that is more protected. Here is a pic of the open hydraulic pivots
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KIMG0381.JPG
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #2  
No grease, for those. Grease would only attract dirt and create the "grinding paste" you mentioned.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #3  
On the contrary, I would drill and tap those moveable joints for grease fittings and keep them well greased often. The infusion of new grease in those joints will evacuate any and all dirt and grit and keep them from wearing excessively. Anytime and everytime I rebuild any customers to be repaired or remachined assemblies, I always drill and tap ALL the moveable joints for grease fittings and instruct my customers to grease them and not with cheap, clay based econo grease either. Only Polyurea based semi synthetic grease and do it often. Really prolongs the life of moveable joints, especially those under high load.

JMO. Nothing more.

Just fabricated and welded up an 'H' member for a Case Extenda-Hoe that the owner never greased (high load situation) and the new one has no less than 4 grease fittings on it. Would have been much less expensive to keep it lubricate than for me to fabricate and weld up a replacement as the 'H' member is NLA. Steel is expensive today, especially heavy gage plate and flats and I had to not only fabricate the H section but I had to machine all the trunnions and machine and heat treat all the pivot pins as well. I think he understands now, hopefully. I did lighten his wallet a bit... :giggle:
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #4  
I have a couple joints like that. Haven't taken the time to drill/tap/instal zerk. I disassemble - clean - grease - reassemble.

I know - one of these days. It's on my list but keeps falling to the bottom. Just too easy to do it the "old" way.

However - the point is - - I do grease these joints.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question!
  • Thread Starter
#5  
Yeah, they are lightly greased at the moment, so I will probably roll with that for now. It is not like I will be digging with this thing, and they are very easy to service. So I will reassess in a couple of months.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #6  
Oosoik and others....
Get yourself a pack of SAE low profile Zerks (real name is Alemite fittings) in 1/4-28 TPI threads and a 1/4" tap drill, (I use a number 3 or 4 tap drill, No.4 if the place where the fitting needs to go can interfere with the rotation of the joint grease fitting and I suspect is heat treated. The low profile fittings are almost flush with the part you drill and SAE fittings aren't an issue, even though Kubota uses metric threaded fittings on their assemblies. I use the No 4 drill if the fitting has to be placed in a high alloy or tempered part. For some odd reason, Kubota don't deem it necessary to install grease fittings on most of their 3 point linkage (except the bevel box and the rock shaft) so I have removed and put Alemite fittings on ALL the moveable joints on both mine as well as I drilled the ball ends on the lift arms and installed grease fittings (again, low profile so no rotational interference with them when I cycle the lift arms) Most likely a production thing as it would take additional operations to install them.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #7  
Not from Amazon (Chinese fittings) either. I made that mistake once. The Chinese fittings have poor threads and the ball checks are iffy too.

Actually, Harbor Freight sells them and the threads are workable plus they come in a clear box so you can see the threads to see if they are good or not. Had basically 100% success with them. one ball check was defective, but that is all. MSC sells them as does ZIP direct but the cost is much more. No point in using Alemite fittings with defective ball checks as all the happens is the pee grease and make a mess.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #9  
Get some greaseable pins.
I'm not fond of greaseable pins on any implement or on Kubota OEM buckets or attachments for a couple reasons. mainly because they tend to get filled with crud that you have to clean and remove before greasing because if you don't the crud gets injected with the grease and two, the machined space is somewhat limited so many grease gun tips won't fit on the fitting head properly. In fact I modified all of mine on both my loaders with tapped in grease fittings, no exceptions and I don't use the recessed fittings at all and on a minor note, the drilled in grease passage as well as the cross drilled grease passage, somewhat weaken the pins as well. IMO, it's a poor design on any tractor or excavation equipment. Pivot pins are always a high stress part and usually heat treated but lax maintenance will eventually destroy them and lack of lubrication when the implement is under heavy load causes the starting torque (implement cylinder end and tractor end) to be excessive anyway. My stuff (everything) get greased ever 10 meter hours or when I put them away. Like the old well worn saying goes.. "It never breaks sitting in the barn" so I'm pro active about maintenance BEFORE putting anything away and that includes my prime movers. In fact, I'm in the middle of servicing them right now. Lube oil, transmission fluid, all filters including the air filters and all OEM Kubota parts (in my case). Check the air pressures, top off the starting batteries with distilled water and check all the connections for corrosion as well.

Prior to putting them away for the winter, I'll make sure the starting batteries are fully charged and the I break them out using the master disconnect. Flooded cell batteries, when fully charged won't freeze until the ambient temp is at -40 degrees (F), and a fully charged flooded cell battery only looses about 5% of it's charge when sitting and not in any circuit. I get excellent service life out of my starting batteries too. Usually 5 years before I see a marked drop in static charge or amperage delivery and then they get changed out and not some box store battery either. Only fresh Interstate's purchased from a volume dealer like my local heavy truck dealership, where I know the starting batteries have a rapid turnover.

Any flooded cell battery sitting on a sellers shelf is getting older even if not installed. A flooded cell battery begins it's useful life once the electrolyte is installed, no exceptions to that unless it's a 'dry charged' battery where the electrolyte is provided in a separate package.

Not many come that way today, just RV batteries for motorbikes, that I know of.
 
   / To grease or not to grease, that is the question! #10  
@HawkinsHollow

Maybe you can be the test case. You said you have 2 pivots. Grease one. Don't grease the other. Monitor them and report your findings back here. So you ruin one of the pivots. It will be worth it to solve the debate. :)
 
 

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