First Time Greasing

sledhead · May 19, 2019, 07:44:44 AM

just replaced the 12" temporary hose I put on the grease gun with a 36" hose

works great !

richard5933 · May 19, 2019, 07:58:27 AM

I like that different colors are available - at least that's a good way to know when the old grease is pushed out of the fitting for the times that you want to do so.

chessie4905 · May 19, 2019, 11:30:19 AM

Many older greases were pretty good. A lot of the newer stuff is designed to be environmentally friendly.Grease with moly in it works nice in many areas.

Jim Blackwood · May 21, 2019, 07:05:29 AM

Just got my fancy new nozzle, it has the double levers and a 3 jaw chuck, looks like it ought to work. About twelve bucks from ebay. Haven't tried it yet but it's going on the Milwaulkee portable. Soon as things settle down to a dull roar around here I'll give it a test drive.

Jim

chessie4905 · May 21, 2019, 07:22:53 AM

The good tips unscrew on the ends and the little paddle like inserts can be reversed when worn and no longer hold on the zerk. Take the time to wipe off the zerks before applying grease. Extends life of greasing tip and avoids most dirt entering zerk and not allowing little check ball to seat, resulting in a tiny stream of grease dribbling out.

GnarlyBus · June 25, 2019, 12:11:09 PM

Update:

We got the jacks, ramps and stands out to grease up the rear end of the bus yesterday. This was our first time lifting the back of the bus up and it went very well. I flipped the dash switch to drain the tag axle air then flipped the valves in the engine compartment to finish draining the tag airbags. Then I backed over two 2x12s and chained up the tag axles. I don't think the chains I've put together were the right size (none came with the bus) as they weren't tight when the bus was up.

We ran up on 2x12 treated ramps. Those were made from an 8' on each side. We normally a board of two for leveling when we're parked. Then we used two 20-ton HF air jacks to lift the bus using the jacking points. We placed the jacks on 12"x12" squares of 1/4" steel channel we'd painted blue with tractor paint to keep them from rusting. (they have 1" lips on two sides and are often used for stair tread in industrial applications but we found them in the steel yard scrap bin. These steel squares were on top of 16x24ish 3/4" plywood to help spread the weight because we were on asphalt. Once we got it up high enough we let the axle down on the ramps and the body rested on the 22-ton jack stands (I love those things). We kept most of the axle weight on the jacks. So we had a some redundancy in case one should fail.

Greasing the Tag Axle:

We started greasing with the tag axle. I used about 1.5 tubes of grease on each side. I started with the center tube zerks (not in my manual) that you can't reach unless under the bus. Then moved onto the two zerks (also not in my manual) on the top and bottom of the saddle clamps and finally the one on the pivot arm which is easily seen between the wheels. About half of these zerks needed replacement. The check ball spring couldn't seal and they'd push grease back out.

Greasing the Drive aka Propeller Shaft:

There was a zerk on each U-Joint and one on the slip joint. I made sure to see grease come out of all 4 cross points on the u-joints. The forward u-joint zerk was too tough to reach up above until we lifted the drive wheels up and rotated the shaft. I'm glad those zerks were good because they would've been a pain to change out.

Greasing the Brake Assemblies:

I didn't touch the zerks on the DD3 chambers as it takes a special lubricant. Most of the brake anchor pins did not want to accept any grease. I did two pumps but most of it wouldn't go in. I'll deal with this someday when I get to replacing the brake liners.

Using the cordless grease gun with a long hose made it considerably easier than it would have been. I added red zerk caps to every one I greased. Next, we adjusted the brakes so I'm off to go update that thread!

chessie4905 · June 25, 2019, 02:24:33 PM

When you grease the kingpins on the front axle, take the weight off the tires.

GnarlyBus · June 25, 2019, 02:45:51 PM

Thanks Chessie. I guess I never updated this thread when I did the front a few weeks ago. I thought I had. I did lift the front axle when I greased the king pins.

Before greasing the front I tested the bearings and king pins by trying to move the wheel with hands at 12 and 6 o'clock and 3 and 9 o'clock. Both wheels were tight.