What grease to use on wet bolt shackles?

[David and Jo-Anna]

Have an two elementary questions about lubricating the wet bolts with the Mor/Ryde wet bolt shackle kit--
what type of grease should be used to lubricate the wet bolts? and
do you need to jack up the rig at all when you do the lubrication, or can you leave the tires flat on the ground when lubricating?

[stiles watson]

I use a standard grease such as you would use to pack your bearings. You don't need to jack up the rig. Just lub the bolts.

[firetrucker]

I recommend a lithium complex grease, which is compatible with lithium greases and some of the other greases. It is one of the more common greases. Get the EP (extreme pressure) type with a moly (molybdenum) additive.

Grease is basically a combination of a thickener (soap), oil, and additives. Not all the thickeners (lithium, aluminum, calcium, sodium, polyurea, etc.) are compatible with each other, and if mixed, may lose their ability to hold the oil (not good). If you're not sure what's been used before, make sure you clean out all the old grease, if you're doing bearings, or pump enough through to push out all the old grease.

Get a new grease gun and mark the type of grease and where it's used on the outside...that helps with the CRS condition.

Bob

[Tom S.]

Any good chassis grease will work. I'm a proponent of synthetic lubes, but the bottom line is any lube is better than no lube!

[NCFischers]

I use a synthetic chassis lube. I personally feel that the new synthetics will hold up a bit better but this is just my opinion. I use synthetic oil in the diesel and have had good results. As stated, it isn't necessary to jack the rig up to lube.

[KTManiac]

Being that this assembly of parts does not really spin like a typical bearing, nor does it cycle very fast(unless you were on some serious washboard stretch of road), I don't think that it really matters what type of grease you use. As mentioned before, it would be best not to mix incompatible grease types. Although in this application, I don't think it would be that big of a deal if you did.

I haul my trailer around in the rain a lot, and I think that a synthetic water-proof grease is the way to go for me. Once I get my wet bolt kit on (still in box), I am going to give Bel-Ray synthetic water-proof grease a try.

[OntMont]

TrailAir told me to use lithium grease in theirs.

[jackel1959]

Here is a quote directly from the Installation Instructions: "Lubricate all the grease fittings using a Lithium complex soap grease, NLGI No. 2 such as Mobile Oil Company Mobilgrease HP or equivalent. Pump the grease in until it begins to show at the ends of the bronze bushings. For best results, the suspension should be lubricated every 3,000 miles."
Having said this, I agree with Tom S. that any lube is better than no lube.
Jack

[jimcol]

I thought I saw on a previous post that jacking may help if you had a zert that would not accept grease. Someone straighten me out. Jim C.

[Tom S.]

quote:Originally posted by jimcol

I thought I saw on a previous post that jacking may help if you had a zert that would not accept grease. Someone straighten me out. Jim C.

Jim, you are straight. That only applies though if the bolt was drilled properly, which has been found to be a problem (dang Chinese stuff). People installing the bolts should try pumping grease through before installing the bolt. I had to re-drill 2 of mine. If, after installing and usage, you find one won't take grease, the bolt may have been put in with the hole at 0* or 180* so the weight of the trailer is causing the spring to block the hole with enough force to keep the grease from going through. The proper fix would be to reposition the bolt, but an interim fix as you say would be taking the weight off the spring.


EDIT: BTW: The word is "Zerk" - named after the inventer, Oscar Ulysses Zerk. Just some more useless trivia info!

[jimcol]

Thanks Tom, I knew I read it but could not remember the condition. Just can't get enough of that useless trivia if only I can remember it.