Corn Head Grease Too Fluid for Gun

doug.nichols

doug.nichols

Senior Member
Has anybody else had the problem of corn head grease being too fluid to be pumped by a standard grease gun? The plunger just moves through the grease tube without pushing much out the nozzle.
 
Define 'standard'.....modern ???


Probably not helpful but, I had no problem using an original Model A factory grease gun.
 
I have the same problem, figured it was due to a cheap gun but have not tried a different one yet. It takes about 10 pumps of Corn Head grease to equal 1 pump of chassis grease and I have to keep resetting the plunger.

Maybe the original style gun would be better suited for this type of grease. Will have to try it as soon as I figure out where it is.
 
I've used up a lot of grease guns over the years for the older helicopters. Some are designed for cartridges and some are not. Some are just plain not well designed at all. The ones that have too loose a plunger seal may leak the grease past the seal into the spring cavity. If it does this, the gun will never work for the thin greases.

The pump piston in most grease guns is pretty small so they don't have a lot of displacement. I've had troubles bleeding the air out of some guns. It can take forever on poorly designed units.

I've not tried to use a suction gun such as is used for gear lube but it may work with the corn header gearbox grease.
 
I use a Harbor Freight type gun as well (Princess Auto here in Canada) to pump corn head grease into the rollers on my John Deere crawler. I use John Deere corn head grease and I assume it's similar weight to other corn head grease and I don't have any problem with the gun. I also use an adapter for the button head fittings but I don't think that make a difference. I would say it must be an issue with your gun.
 
fundytides said:
I use a Harbor Freight type gun as well (Princess Auto here in Canada) to pump corn head grease into the rollers on my John Deere crawler. I use John Deere corn head grease and I assume it's similar weight to other corn head grease and I don't have any problem with the gun. I also use an adapter for the button head fittings but I don't think that make a difference. I would say it must be an issue with your gun.
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Ditto on all of the above, except, I am in the USA.
 
If the grease gun is made to use cartriges the piston is smaller to fit in the cartrige, try it with empty grease cartrige
 
I've had troubles bleeding the air out of some guns
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FWIW, years ago I was shown that if you remove the nipple or hose coming out of the grease gun before bleeding it will bleed the air out much easier.
 
I have a tube in a harbor freight gun, test pumped fine. I need to pump it into my steering box. Are you guys screwing in a zerk into the fill hole for that?
 
Jeff M said:
. I need to pump it into my steering box. Are you guys screwing in a zerk into the fill hole for that?
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Many do just that, but then make the mistake of using non fluid grease or gear oil. That is why Ford switched to a plug early on.
 
The corn head may need to be stirred in the tube cannister. I put it in the refrig. for a short period to help coagulate.
I drill out an extra 2 tooth box plug and tap a hole for a small zerk. Then one can inspect fluid level and pump more if needed.
 
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