Im trying to grease my 257b. The two grease fittings on both sides of the undercarriage is giving me problems. You can press the fitting with a small screwdriver and some grease will come out but if you hook a grease gun to the fitting it will not take any gease. It just makes pressure in my grease gun. Are there any tricks to solving this?
Maybe just unscrew those fittings, throw 'em away and put in a couple new ones?
I can probaly do that on two of them but the back two will not unsccrew due to a bracket right behind it preventing it from spining all the way around.
You can try to apply a little heat to the area around the grease fitting to loosen up the crud.
From my experience with Bobcat undercarriages, they have what "appears" to be two grease zerks at the base of the tensioning cylinder an each side. The one with the small ball in the centre is used to tighten your track while the other one is really a "bleeder" port. It is the one with the wide open hole in the centre. This might apply to this unit, however I have only limited knowledge of Bobcat brand skidsteers.
I couldn't get grease to seep out of fittings, which is usually the rule of thumb for me that I've got enough in/wipe off the excess. When greasing my lift arms, found that the only close resemblance to grease was at the fitting. When I removed the pins, the grease had turned into a hard paste-preventing me from putting anymore in. Resulted in cleaning off entire surface then got the proper results (and changed the fitting at same time).
Could also be a loaded point. try with loader up - down - lifting machine. see if there is a position that alows that fitting to take grease.
When you say that the grease had turned to hard paste that is a dead giveaway that the servicing has been neglected! If you just bought this unit and are getting it in shape thats one thing, but if you have owned it for sometime servicing needs to be more of a priority. Daily greasing is mandatory on loaders and especially lower bucket and tilt cylinder linkage. melben
Is this a tracked machine? If so are these grease zerks for the track tensioner? If they are then your tracks are tight and they won't except anymore grease.
You can buy a grease fitting cleaner that will clean the grease fitting. They are not very expensive. It actually fits the grease fitting and works off the pressure of your grease gun. It got a some type of needle that enters the grease fitting hold to unblock the hole in the grease fitting.
If you are greasing the tensioners, they wont take grease if the tracks are two tight. The grease fitings on the axles are the same way they rarely take grease.
I have had the same problem on a 257 and my 289 does it also every now and then. Jack your tractor all the way off the ground so the tracks are not touching the ground that will take the pressure off the rear torsion axle. It should take grease now. That way works for me almost all the time.