Hello all I have a 1.7m3 (3 tonne) bucket on my 10t wheel loader and one of the pins to the bucket will not take grease. I have tried the following 1) cleaning the inside by taking of the grease nipple, washing it with solvent and connecting air and pressurising to 1000kPa - to try and blow it through 2) heating it up with a heat gun when trying 3 and 4 below 3) undoing the bolts to the pin back and using a 10t ram to push it out - it would not budge 4) trying to knock the pin out with a sledge hammer 5) wiggling the bucket whilst trying to pump in grease I assume that dirt has got in and blocked the grease path so I thought that blowing it out would be an idea, then I thought take out the pin and clean it..... Any ideas? cheers
Yes,a heat gun on that pin is like a mosquito trying to hurt an elephant.You need SERIOUS heat from an acetalyn torch or similar focused on the bushings.You want the bushings to swell,NOT the pin.Of course the pin will also get hot but thats what needs to be done,along of course with your fav juice on said pin.The grease channels on the pin and around the pin itself probably has caked dirt in it.
Yes, I had the heat gun on the thing for about half an hour - and thought that a bit more heat might be the go. I have seen torches that run of the 10kg gas bottles (22 pound bottles) - the bottles that are used for cookers. Do you think that this type of torch would produce enough heat as getting acetylene bottles for one job is an expensive pain? cheers
You're talking about a roofers torch used for hot flat roofs.No good at all,you cant focus the blue flame where you need it,way too broad a flame.Get yourself a good quality plumbers torch using Map gas,way hotter than propane.Figure on app.$60 for both.
Other ideas Hook up the oil line from a porta power, pump it up, then rotate the joint. Carbide drill bit to drill through the bushing. Assuming the channel around the bushing is plugged but otherwise the fitting hole goes straight into the bushing. A 1/8" carbide bit for masonry sharpened a little more will drill through the bushing with a cordless drill.
I have had good luck using the porta power pump method. The light weight oil at high pressure will get through just about any hardened grease. Then if you do get the oil through try the grease again and if it does go in regrease several times during the day while using the machine. This will help work fresh grease in with the old stuff and help soften it.
There are a lot of farmers around here that have propane-fired cutting torches. They are definitely not as hot as acetylene but they do work. Is the grease fitting in the bushing or the center of the pin? If it's in the pin itself, chances are the grease hole is smeared shut and the only way you're going to fix it is get that pin out. If you do get it out, and the pin is still usable, I have used an electric chop saw to grind a small grease groove around the pin.
Just keep running it without grease. Eventually it'll fall out on its own. :thumbsup
Some great ideas, thanks - digger242j your idea sounds attractive.......but it will ruin the bushes on the bucket and arm, not just the pin? The grease nipple is at the centre of the pin. The connecting the porta power directly idea sounds like it is worth a try - I did that with 1000kpa air, but the porta power is in the Mpa's so good idea
d4dozer, Don't listen to digger! I think he is getting a kick back from some guy in your area that does line boring!
Delmer & kshansen, I really like the idea of directly connecting the porta power, I take it you unscrewed the grease nipple, then put the porta power female directly on - I take it you made up a conversion piece to allow this to happen?
The grease zerk should be ⅛" pipe thread........or metric equivalent??? It will be pipe thread whatever size, just get a longer nipple and thread into the pin, and whatever you need after that to hook hose onto it.
Just make sure you use hydrualic pipe nipple ,not black pipe .see people do dumb stuff .you can buy fittings rated for Porta power pump 10,000 psi .hydrualic suppler should be able to hook you up.There is a company call Butech that makes high pressure fittings.When you pump it up do not have any one stand by hose or pin joint in case high pressure oil is shot out.I have use this method and work good.you call also try pumping it up and let sit over night to let oil soak in.You can put a little heat form other side , than pump up port a power .remember the thinner the oil the better it will find it way into the openings and clean out jiont.
The only correct way is good old fashioned heat ,some go go juice of your fancy,and a SERIOUS thumping.That way you can examine and clean the pin and bore,grease it well,put her back.Any other way you're leaving behind grit that will wear the assembly prematurely and a loss of power from the added friction plus the squealing.
You never said they had to be good ideas... :beatsme
On an old backhoe [much abused] I had one fitting that wouldn't take grease - The bronze bushing had actually spun a little, putting the hole in it out of line with the fitting. 1/8" drill cured that.
Yes used a couple adapters to reduce the Porta-Power thread down to the 1/8 pipe for the grease fitting hole threads. I will admit I used just standard schedule 40 pipe. I checked and in the 1/8 inch size the bursting pressure on it is around 20,000psi. Double the pressure the Porta-Power I have is capable of producing. Yes recommended working pressure is much lower! But with the 6 foot (2 meter) hose on the Porta-Power and the very small quantity of oil I was putting in the fitting hole felt I was safe. I would not hold on to the pipe or get my face anywhere near the joint in case there was a spray of high pressure oil. I also will clean out any old grease or dirt in the hole and fill it with some kind of penetrating oil before connecting the Porta-Power. Might not be possible with grease hole in pin like yours. Two advantages to this, penetrating oil will help loosen the old grease and eliminating as much air as possible will lessen the chance of spraying of oil when it does free up. Air will compress but the oil will not. With no air as soon as a few drops of leak out the pressure is almost zero. To bleed of much of the air you could install fitting a little loose and pump the Porta-Power some to fill the pin then tighten before putting the real pressure to it. If this does work I might be tempted to use this set-up to flush the joint out a couple times over the next few days then grease it after using it everytime, I feel it is best to grease after using as that flushes out any crap that got in while working and it's ready to go the next time.
The grease channel through the pin is a little different than the bushing with the groove around it. Did you use a can of brake cleaner with the plastic straw? that might be enough to bend around the corner if you bent the tip of the straw first and tried inserting it off of the can first. Or use a broken speedometer cable to see if you can push around the corner?
go, go juice of your choice - sounds like a steroid to give you the energy to beat the pin out!
thanks for the comments - I have not seen the insides of the pin, so assume that if the grease nipple goes into the end of the pin, the pin must be hollow and then have a ninety hole drilled in at one or two locations back to the central pin channel to transfer the grease to the bush. So it is likely that the grease blockage is as the top of these ninety degree holes stoping the grease from exiting the hole and going into the bush?
Just thought up another idea. Take a hand powered grease gun with a hose on the end. Take the grease out of it and fill it with diesel fuel pump it till it's free of grease. Now connect the grease hose to the pin directly, not using the zerk fitting or coupler, then hold the grease gun up so you can fill it with fresh diesel. Now pump the grease gun to force the diesel into the pin under pressure. A good grease gun should put out about the same pressure as your Porta-Power and the diesel will go through places that even the thin hydraulic oil will not pass.
Kshansen - sounds like a good idea, there is nothing to loose by trying, compared with the other alternatives......
Exactly, you either need brute force pressure to squeeze the "plug of gunk" out the hole and between the pin and bushing, or some luck/creativity to loosen it up with more solvent or mechanical action.
I have tried this before, it worked one time, the other couple times the pin was shot. Don't get discouraged if the pump idea doesn't work. There is a strong chance you will need to get that pin out.
Why did the worn out pin prevent grease/blockage from being cleared? I think I should modify the pin by introducing an extra grease channel.
I think if you manage to get it to take grease and do a good job of keeping it grease after every use there should be no need for modifying the pin or bushing. However if you do end up removing the pin and want to try something I would not make a groove around the pin. I would make the groove inline with the pin, that way the grease would tend to coat the full width of the bushing. A groove around the pin might make the pin weak and cause it to break.
I've never seen a pin so worn that it won't take grease. I think it's just the amount of hard packed dirt that builds up in the end of the grease channel like you described. If you can get the pin out in decent shape after this ordeal, I bet you won't have this problem again. No need to modify the pin. Unless you want to "chamfer" or "countersink" the end of the channel on the surface of the pin to make it harder to form a tight plug. To get the pin out, don't hammer on the pin directly. A hydraulic jack pulling against the other side of the joint so the joint doesn't bind is ideal. Edit: Yeah, what Kshansen said, but I wouldn't put any groove in the pin, if the grease gets out of the hole where else is it going to go but the length of the bushing.
What happens is metal gets "smeared" over the hole where the grease comes out. There is sometimes a grease channel around the pin, but if the wear goes past that point, the pin is junk. If any of these solutions work to get it accepting grease on a regular basis, you got lucky. Another tool nobody has mentioned is the grease buster. A tool you place on the fitting (or screw directly in) and tap with a SMALL hammer to force the light oil through the joint. Edit: I should have been more clear with the grease groove. I only deepen an existing grease groove, never make a new one. Like Kshansen said, lengthwise is proper if making a new grease groove.
Well it so transpires that the male thread on the end of the grease gun is the same thread as the grease nipple. So after all the above good advice, my plan is to fill the grease gun with diesel, connect the grease gun directly to the pin via the grease nipple hole and pump up the grease gun. I am thinking that if the pressure does not "blow through" I should get in the machine and rotate the bucket a few time whilst under the pressure from the grease gun. Worst thing that can happen is that its remains as it is!
If you have someone you can trust you could have them work the bucket while you are pumping the gun. But make sure they are a very good operator. It's a very small number of guys I would trust to do that!
Yes - it is dangerous that is for sure - the only person I could ask is my wife.....who has not driven a loader before....but I could get her to pump the grease whilst I wiggled the bucket!!!!!
remove the pin , you er going to to wiggled forever
The reason behind all this is that the pin is stuck solid and I do not have acetylene bottles, once this fails (hopefully not) then it will be time to hire the bottles and remove the pin
Solved at last - bought a 7500 PSI electric grease gun and the end coupler did not leak, but stalled the grease gun momentarily, blew out the blockage and pumped it full of grease!!! I have tried with a hand gun, large air system, but the end couplers did not hold the pressure and grease went everywhere, so what a surprise that this one worked. By the way it was an Alminite.
well done d4dozer, I was wondering how you were getting on with this. On a side note, how is your 220-5 getting on? I have been curious since I found out we bought the other one from the same bloke you got yours off. Ours has been getting a bit of a hammering lately and appears to be taking it well. steve
Good to hear you got it, one trick I have used is to use a drill bit after removing the zerk of course, to clean out as much of the hard crunchy crap from the pin as possible first so as to not be packing it in even worse.
Just hit 100 hours, trying to fix the track problem again, otherwise its ok, other than hard to start. cheers
surprisingly, we have put nearly 200hrs on our one now, its turning out to be a bloody useful piece of gear.
If I had known how useful I would have got one years ago, they do the job of every other machine , well almost !
I agree, they can do almost anything, maybe a little slower than with the correct machine, but they'll still do it