Yesterday I took the plunge and greased the wheel bearings after re-reading the posts about this. I was going to get my DH to do this, but last weekend he had to pull the toilet out of the master bathroom and replace it this week, and then a pine tree fell into our driveway yesterday, which he will have to cut up and remove. I figured my honey had enough "to do". After he went to work, I did too.
What a mess! First I couldn't get the grease gun head to thread straight onto the grease gun cylinder. When I finally got it to go on, I got the end of the grease gun tube fitted onto the wheel bearing fitting, and then it wouldn't come off. I had horrible images of us driving to an RV repair shop with the end of the grease gun duct-taped to the wheel...
I tried unscrewing it, and pulling on it, and it wouldn't budge. Finally figured out that if you just kind of moved it aside to an angle then you could pull it off (whew!).
There was grease everywhere, went through 1/2 a roll of paper towels, plus I cut my finger trying to wipe out the excess from inside where the seal goes, so there was blood mixed with grease on everything. I finally went inside and cleaned up and put on a bandaid, then put on latex gloves. That greatly improved my grip on the gun.
Although I kept twisting the end of the handle, and even "burped" the air space from the grease, you could only get so much grease into the fitting. And then when I thought the tube was empty, there was like 1/2 of a tube left, and it went everywhere.
It took 3 tubes of the mini cartridges from Wal Mart to make the old black grease come out.
But my finger is better today, and hopefully there is plenty of lubrication in the wheel bearings.
I figure next time we go out we should drive a mile or two and then see what the wheels look like...
Adding Grease to the Wheel Bearings
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