BJ won't accept grease?

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
Replaced upper/lower balljoints this weekend. multiple fiascos but that's another story :lol:

Got it all together and the lower ball joint won't "take" any grease from the gun. E.g. if it's off the zerk just a little, just squirts out the side (no shocker there), straight on, nice and tight, I can't squeeze the gun so any grease goes into the space around the BJ. It's like I'm trying to squeeze into a solid space.
Removed the zerk fitting, it flows grease fine, I can see at least a little grease just inside the hole, but the boot beneath the ball is clearly not filling.

I've never seen this before, any ideas?
 
really tight tolerances? zerk tapped too deep, and bottoming out? might try a pneumatic greaser or a grease driver (fits on zerk, has plunger, fill with grease, and strike with hammer)

if its jacked up off the ground would help too.
 
Truck is currently on stands so the A-arms are hanging.
The zerk is on the back of the unit so it faces into the knuckle, can only get to it w/ the wheels locks either direction. I've tried both directions, as well as a different zerk.
Not sure how I'd know if the zerk was bottomed out, but if I back it off any the grease squeezes out the threads.
I'm using the standard small gun you put a 3" tube into, confirmed it worked OK on all the other joints.

I could maybe try putting yellow Teflon on the zerk threads to seal it, then thread only 90% in.
 
...or, put some weight on it (vehicle sitting on it's own wheels ) maybe even drive it around the block a few times.

some joints are pretty tight when new, of course, there is the possibility the port didn't get drilled thru, had that happen on some fork lift parts recently.
 
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