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Where's the grease zerks?

8074 Views 25 Replies 17 Participants Last post by  SK17touring, 
G2RL
Are there any to be found anywhere?
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HondaCasey
Yes - on riding lawn mowers and bulldozers. Good luck finding any on a passenger vehicle made in the last few decades.
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silkiechicken
Time for me to google "grease zerks".
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Nervey
silkiechicken said:
Time for me to google "grease zerks".
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400 years from now, they will look back on our literary dialog and proclaim that it was poetic in the way we view Shakespeare today. Could your very sentence be exactly how William sounded to folks in the 1600's?
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silkiechicken
Nervey said:
400 years from now, they will look back on our literary dialog and proclaim that it was poetic in the way we view Shakespeare today. Could your very sentence be exactly how William sounded to folks in the 1600's?
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LOL. I don't know about that, but I won't be here in 400 years to find out. I did google it though and now at least have an idea what they are. I also now know that I can't ever recall seeing one in the relatively short span of my existence (or just need to get out more).
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GhostYK1
Yeah..there haven't been grease (zerk) fittings on OEM parts in the past 25 years. Only if you were to purchase premium aftermarket parts, would some of them have one.

The days of oil changes that actually included greasing fittings are long gone on these chassis. Not just imports, never had a zerk fitting on any of my post 2000 GM cars ether.
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Nervey
silkiechicken said:
LOL. I don't know about that, but I won't be here in 400 years to find out. I did google it though and now at least have an idea what they are. I also now know that I can't ever recall seeing one in the relatively short span of my existence (or just need to get out more).
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They are only popular to hipsters in Austin. :)

No really, it was a good question. Damn, time passes fast. I was just under the dash today hooking up a dash cam and as I looked around I was thinking ... Sh**, am I that irrelevant now. The accelerator is not an accelerator it's a knob with a lever instead of a knob. Relays are not relays, they are speaker clicks... blah blah blah.

I typically don't hold on to vehicles, but I haven't had a pickup in a while, so if I get past my frustration and keep it, it will be for a long time. So I view it with, eh, I better think about maintenance again. And every spring when I'm out lubing up the small equipment (that's not slang by the way), I could see myself asking the very same question. Hey where's the grease fittings on the truck?

So, Silk... if you have livestock do you have farm/garden equip? It might be that many of your pieces of machinery have those fittings, and they need a good shot from a grease gun.
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Nervey
HondaCasey said:
Yes - on riding lawn mowers and bulldozers. Good luck finding any on a passenger vehicle made in the last few decades.
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I read this, and my eyes grow big! Damn... my bulldozer! I forgot.
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O
I have some on my snowblower and hand truck.

Don't the 2017 1-ton pickups still have them? It can't be called a Real Truck unless it has nipples (zerks) on the driveshaft, as a minimum.
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GhostYK1
Yes there are Heavy Duty, industrial and agricultural equipment that still incorporate grease fittings as regular maintenance parts. However, production vehicles of the domestic type have, for the most part, ditched them. There is more money to be had in replacing dried out joints than there is paying a tech to grease them during an oil change. Even though we still pay the prices for that maintenance.
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M
I have Chevys and a Buick from the 50's and 60's so that every Fall I grease all of the many Zerks as well as change the oil and filter before their winter sleep. King pins and ball joints are equally seen as terms from the past but common to us old gearheads.
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M
Still quite common on snowmobile suspensions and a few areas on inboard boats. The grease zerk may have vanished on the automobile but believe me they are still quite alive and welcome in many areas in numerous applications. Today the mechanic simply says you need to replace that steering joint or tie rod end as opposed to squirting a little grease in there now and then and they outlasted the car. There are quite a few applications where sealed things do better with a little help now and then as the term sealed for life is more like dog year life. Personally I like to use a grease needle in certain sealed applications.
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S
GhostYK1 said:
Yeah..there haven't been grease (zerk) fittings on OEM parts in the past 25 years. Only if you were to purchase premium aftermarket parts, would some of them have one.

The days of oil changes that actually included greasing fittings are long gone on these chassis. Not just imports, never had a zerk fitting on any of my post 2000 GM cars ether.
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uhm...my 2002 Chevy S-10 has them.
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G2RL
100MPG said:
uhm...my 2002 Chevy S-10 has them.
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I know some of the F250 and F350s had them but not sure about now and the new and newer 150s don't have even one but I could be wrong. I know some of my not so older F150s had them on the universal joints and maybe a few others. Some parts had a plug installed where you could screw in a grease fitting.
As mentioned in a post above you can use a needle which I've used in the past to get some in ball joints and such.
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silkiechicken
Nervey said:
So, Silk... if you have livestock do you have farm/garden equip? It might be that many of your pieces of machinery have those fittings, and they need a good shot from a grease gun.
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I have some small livestock, but not enough to have any real farm/garden equipment. I barely have what you'd call a hobby farm... just living on and making use of a chunk of land in the middle of high density housing and commercial businesses. I grow about half of all the veggies we eat for the year, a few hundred pounds of fruits, and a good quantity of our protein sources right outside. The stash of last year's harvest is down to a handful of veggies, a bit of frozen fruit juices, and some frozen rabbit. Just took Henry to the butcher so soon we'll have more lamb, and I'm one week away from starting onions. The city people call me a farmer, the farmers would just laugh if they over heard that statement.

The real farms and farm supply places are about 20-30 miles away and if I need anything farm like, I no longer have to ask for a ride and can now take the RL instead of a coupe to go get it!!! :grin:
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ToadVine
Nervey said:
400 years from now, they will look back on our literary dialog and proclaim that it was poetic in the way we view Shakespeare today. Could your very sentence be exactly how William sounded to folks in the 1600's?
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Hark! What grease doth through yon zerk fitting squirt?
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hygieneboy
My 2013 Tacoma had a few grease zerks on the U joints. The current ones have them as well so they still are out there.
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hygieneboy said:
My 2013 Tacoma had a few grease zerks on the U joints. The current ones have them as well so they still are out there.
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forgot about the U-joints! They DO NOT Have any zerks! Original u joints at the moment, 140,000 miles.
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N
My '15 F150 is zerkless. Now, my commercial zero-turn mower, on the other hand, has more than I care to count!
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Alexderaven
100MPG said:
forgot about the U-joints! They DO NOT Have any zerks! Original u joints at the moment, 140,000 miles.
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Can't tell if sarcasm. But the new Tacomas do have U-joints on the drive shaft with zerks. It was an issue because they where coming out with bearly any grease in them from factory.
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