Lower ball Joint

[Lazzman]

Hello,

I just replaced the left lower ball joint on my Sport and am having a problem connecting my Grease Gun to it.

I have a Linocoln grease gun that is supposed to be of good quality I am told, but when I attach it to the Zerk fitting on the Lower Ball joint grease just squirts out everywhere? I have use the gun on other things such as Tie Rod ends and such with no problems, though the Zerk fitting on the Ball joint seems much bigger.

I used a lower Ball Joint from Pep Boys called Pro Steer, seemed to be a good unit with a lifetime warranty, has to be better than the Moog units as of late.

I need this truck for daily driving and the Questions I have are: Is it ok to drive the truck with out grease in the Ball joint and Why wouldn't the grease gun work with the zerk on the ball joint?

Do I need to buy an adapter or something?

If this is a bone head question my apologies, it is my first ball joint replacement.

Thanks

 

[rickybobby]

sounds like the fitting might be bad, i have had that happen a few times as a service tech.

 

[Lazzman]

yeah maybe, it looks fine and the gun locks on but the grease does not go in the zerk just spews out all around it.

My gun has sat for about 4 years without using it wonder if that might have something to do with it but I doubt it.

How would I know if the zerk fitting is bad?

Another thing is that the coupling on the gun does not seem to grab tightly to the zerk- it is locked on but there is a lot of back and forth play. I recall when I first got the Lincoln gun that it fit the zerks very tightly and I loaded the Tie Rod ends with Synthetic lube til it was busting out Yeeh Haaaah.....

Maybe a new coupler would work?

 

[dogfriend]

Zerk fittings are usually easy to replace and cheap. I would try replacing the fitting. The only issue is that there are different sizes; 1/4" threads & 8mm threads. I once used an 8mm to replace a 1/4 that stripped out the threads.

 

[Lazzman]

Good enough, I will give it a shot.

Will it hurt the ball joint driving without the grease in there?

 

[olskool reddevil]

grease

I would not drive it to much there is usually grease from the factory but I wouldn't count on it being anything real good.I would pull the fitting and see if it is clogged and proceed accordingly.

 

[Lazzman]

The fitting on the gun was broken. The new gun I bought is a Lucas and it worked well only thing is I cannot get the Zerk to come out of the jaws on the guns fitting.

Pulled it left and right up and down to no avail???

 

[rickybobby]

the jaws on the gun might have to be loosened, it took me a bit to figure that out on my new gun, the first time i had to use channel locks to get it to unscrew.

 

[Lazzman]

Yup, it was like that on my old Lincoln gun but not on this new Lucas gun. The damn thing wont come off no matter how hard I pull on it.


I am going to find an adjustable jaw housing.

Thanks for the help.

 

[kathleenp980]

Thanks you for the post.
Hi guys, Im a newbie. Nice to join this forum.