Stripped Steering Spindle Grease Fitting

OL JENNY

OL JENNY

Senior Member
I have a stripped zerk fitting on my steering spindle. I cleaned it and used some JB Weld but a day later when I applied pressure from the grease gun it blew out again. Can I tap it with another size fitting? Are there over sized zerks?
Thanks
 
If the fitting is a press-in style (which I believe is the case on the spindles) then the hole should be 5/16" (0.3125"), or in your case maybe a bit more. You might try a new fitting, which would have good barbs. Alternatively, you could install a screw-in fitting (the ones for the shock links), they use a 1/8"-27 NPT thread. The tap drill size for this is 21/64" (0.3281"). Likely you'd need to remove the spindle from the car to do this as you would not want metal chips in the greasy mess. May as well rebush the spindle while you have it out.

JayJay
 
It shouldn't take a lot of pressure to grease this, if it takes enough to make the fitting come out there may be a restriction.
 
Here are some good zerk repair suggestions on a tractor forum. I have four tractors and I'm always breaking off zerks hitting rocks.

https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=ttalk&th=952604


What I have found is when things are "not" greased regularly the grease turns rock hard and blocks the hole in the part. Then you come along and try and force grease into a spot that has nowhere to go, the extreme pressure hydraulics out the zerk, threads and all. It's usually not that somebody stripped them with a wrench, it's the threads were pushed out with the zerk, when somebody pushed down as hard as they could on the grease gun. I've bent the handles on guns trying to get the grease to go in. As I got older, I learned to stop and switch to plan "B" when things don't move, before, I destroy something. If you have a zerk that does not want to take the grease rotate the part as your applying the grease and sometimes that gets the grease moving. You can Remove the zerk, clean out the hole in the part, put a little WD40 in there and work the part back and forth, install a new zerk and then force out all that grease you contaminated with WD-40.
 
The drive in grease modern zerk type grease fittings are actually threaded fitting that have had most, not all, of the threads turned off so look like they are stripped. If you are going to install any drive in type fittings I recommend you buy the tool for doing it.
 
Spoiler Alert .............. the modern press in fittings ARE NOT THREADED. What look like threads are actually concentric raised "rings" that act as "barbs" to help grip the hole as the fitting is pressed in. It's possible someone put one of these in the spindle thinking it was threaded. Take your fitting to a good auto parts or hardware store and compare it to a modern threaded grease fitting. There are 2 different sizes. You want the larger one which has a "1/8 pipe thread". This is a tapered thread allowing the fitting to get tighter and tighter as you screw it in further .............. so it can't fall out. Buy one of these and try it in your spindle for fit. If it works and you actually feel it get tighter as you screw it in. If not, you've got a receiving hole that is either wallered out or the threads are severely damaged. Good luck.
 
bobbader said:
Spoiler Alert .............. the modern press in fittings ARE NOT THREADED. What look like threads are actually concentric raised "rings" that act as "barbs" to help grip the hole as the fitting is pressed in. It's possible someone put one of these in the spindle thinking it was threaded. Take your fitting to a good auto parts or hardware store and compare it to a modern threaded grease fitting. There are 2 different sizes. You want the larger one which has a "1/8 pipe thread". This is a tapered thread allowing the fitting to get tighter and tighter as you screw it in further .............. so it can't fall out. Buy one of these and try it in your spindle for fit. If it works and you actually feel it get tighter as you screw it in. If not, you've got a receiving hole that is either wallered out or the threads are severely damaged. Good luck.
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The smaller size is 1/4" straight thread (I think it's 1/4-28) and will flop around in your 5/16" diameter hole. If you want to do a threaded fitting do as Bob suggests - get one with 1/8" tapered pipe threads. Nonintuitive, but the bottom of the 1/8" tapered fitting is considerably larger than the 1/4". As Bob suggests, you can try simply screwing in the fitting but likely you'll need to drill it out to 21/64" and thread it (see my comments above). Don't ask how I know all this... it's a "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" situation.

JayJay
 
Thank you everyone for your support and responses. I have a set of modern style fittings ordered and I will freeze a new one and press it in. I have the tool to do that, but the fitting is an angled one so the tool I have may not help. If this doesn’t work I will report back.
 
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