Grease capacities

fritznbud

fritznbud

Senior Member
Hey all! I went and removed all of my grease fittings today. Some were the originals, and cleaned out the old tan powder that once was grease. I re-greased the car and pumped alot into the rear wheel bearings. My question is how will i know when there is enough in there? The other fittings obviously push grease out when full, but the bearings are taking all i can give it. Also my steering gear will take a bunch. What is the capacity of the '30 2 tooth steering gear? And the water pump? Thanks
 
I think the water pump takes a diff. type grease then the rest of the car, it has to be water pump grease only, i have heard here that you can over grease the rear wheel bearings and it could get on your rear break's, maybe someone here with more knowledge can jump in....good luck.
 
hes right to much grease will leak into the brake drums and make a mess, about 3 pumps is all you need there, after a long run put your hand on the rear brake drum snout, if its real hot, cant hold your hand on it, you might want to give the bearings another couple of pumps, and maybe only one pump on the water pump every 300 to 500 miles
 
Louis, I stopped after 6 or 7 pumps of the gun, thinking just that. The grease could end up on my brakes. I hope the water pump is O.K. with bearing grease. I also stopped pumping it in after 6 or 7 strokes. And Gunmetal, 600W i'm aware of and 4 1/2 ounces of it must be what you meant. Thanks guys
 
fritznbud said:
Hey all! I went and removed all of my grease fittings today. Some were the originals, and cleaned out the old tan powder that once was grease. I re-greased the car and pumped alot into the rear wheel bearings. My question is how will i know when there is enough in there? The other fittings obviously push grease out when full, but the bearings are taking all i can give it. Also my steering gear will take a bunch. What is the capacity of the '30 2 tooth steering gear? And the water pump? Thanks
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Louis is right on everything. You only need 1 or 2 pumps of the grease gun for the rear bearings as any excess will spill out and get onto the brakes. NOT a good thing! If I was you I would take off the rear drums and clean out all that grease you pumped in there.

The u-joint is packed in grease rather then greased internally like modern u-joints. It takes alot of grease for the u-joint. Remove a bolt from the speedo housing and pump grease into the cavity until you see it come out the bolt hole. It takes ALOT of grease.

Steering box is supposed to have the 600w oil that the suppliers sell. You need to remove all of the grease you put in there and fill it with the correct 600w.

The best source for the maintainence of these ole girls is Vol 1 of Les Andrews. Lots of good info in there!

Hope this helps
Greg
 
Thanks Greg, I just went and googled info on my water pump, grease is fine in there, just not as much as i pumped in.
 
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fritznbud said:
Thanks Greg, How about the grease in my water pump? Is there a different type of grease for it? I sure better get that Les Andrews book before i tear something else up on my jewel.
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It depends upon the type of water pump that you have. I'm running a maintainence free wp so I don't grease it. Different mfgs of the wp require different methods, some grease the front bearing only and some don't.

I am under the impression the any waterproof grease would work in an original wp but do not know 100%. You only want 1 or 2 pumps on a wp as excess grease will go into the water passage and you won't see it, except in your radiator. It does not say anything about the type of grease for the wp in Les's book.

Greg
 
The design of the rear axle housings are such that when grease is pumped through the grease fitting the grease goes into a circurlar groove that is cut into the inside diameter of the housing. The grease is then trapped between two seals, the one around the axle shaft, and the one on the outboard side of the wheel bearing in the brake drum. This trapped grease is then forced out around the circumference of the axle shaft and the clearance on the ID of the bearing hub on the housing. The grease is then forced into the bearing. A torturous route at best.

Unless someone has had the axle housing apart in recent years the circular groove is usually plugged with crud and the seal on the axle shaft is shot. I have dissassebled many rear ends and found this condition. The owner who continually pumps grease in through the fitting, if he is able to get any in at all, causes the grease to migrate down the axle shaft toward the differential instead of going the other direction. I have found axle shafts with an inch or more diameter of grease centrifuged along the axle shaft half way to the differential.

It is my belief that if you pack the rear wheel bearings with grease when you do a brake job, it should not need greasing again until the next brake job.

On my two cars the rear ends have been overhauled in recent years and have new seals and the circular groove, the grease fitting, and the hole it resides in cleaned out. Whenever I grease the car I give it a couple shots because I can, but I doubt it is necessary.

Tom Endy
 
Tom, My rear is new also, and speaking of crud...the stuff i dug out of some of my grease fitting holes, after a liquid wrench spray, had to be from the factory. The previous owner must have never did any maintenance. The greatest thing about doing this job today is that i would Never even think of trying to remove a grease fitting from today's cars, if they still had any, knowing every one of 'em would snap off...This 'ol jewel of mine, i had to chisel off the crud to find the fittings but they all came out like they were put in yesterday. They all cleaned up with ease....what a car! :)
 
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