FHS 210 Sport had a great post on this ................it's all in a light touch/feel on the grease handle..........this is how I add..... I pump 2 pumps on my bench......this gives me an amount my gun puts out and clears any air in the gun lines..........I pumped on zerk slowly, and at the end of stroke number one of my gun I felt it start getting hard on the feel. On the start of the second pump I felt it staying hard at the start.........I STOPPED before seal pop. VARY SLOW pumps to allow you to feel small difference in pressure.
Thanks!
Yes, just have to pay attention and don’t be a caveman when pumping grease in. It’s really too bad the design doesn’t include a fitting that can be removed to let grease out and you would know it is full.
The most important thing besides not over greasing this housing is to leave room for expansion, whether it’s grease or gear oil, leave room for expansion when the lube gets hot or it will push its way out.
The first time I greased the intermediate bearings I used an irrigation syringe (bought a bag of 60CC ones off of Amazon), pulled the plunger and put enough grease in it so when I compressed it there were no voids, put a zerk in the tip and then pumped grease in with my grease gun so I could measure the amount of grease going in per full stroke of the pump handle. Then added the amount of grease as prescribed in the manual to the intermediate bearing housing. This year I added grease with my grease gun by feel, then pulled the zerk on each bearing and using a piece of line trimmer line stuck that down in there to verify there was enough grease AND room for expansion.
So for you
@Patricko315, for the first lubrication, I’d pull the hose off of the bearing housing (use a piece of trimmer line and check to see if there is grease in it while it’s open) and pump grease down the hose to make sure there are no voids / air pockets in the line, re assemble and add grease how I did the first time, on mine I think it was 33-35cc of grease. Is this a PITA? Yep, but it’s once a year and will take you maybe 15 mins total.
Make yourself one of these to make doing maintenance easier.
I have monkey arms but they’re not long enough to reach all the way to the back of the engine bay! There’s no where to support yourself when you boom out to get to the oil filters or intermediate bearings.
I bought a 2X8 and some 3&1/2” deck screws and threw this together today. This gives you some place to put your hands and a place to lay your body when you’re reaching into the engine bay, and your not putting weight onto the coil packs and injectors….
@drewkaree @WiskyDan @Ericd @Can0n11 @Dixemon
Dimensions;
32&1/2” cross board
7&1/2” drops
2&1/2” top...
The bearings facing each other inside the housing must not be sealed or there wouldn’t be a greasing recommendation, therefore this area needs to be greased. If you’re hesitant have the dealer grease it, if they pop the seals then they own it. Have the tech show you how it’s done.
Going forward I’ll just pull the zerk and check the grease level before adding grease.
I’ve said this about the oil bath conversion of the outboard jet pump bearing, that set up doesn’t have the correct seals for gear lube, and I think the same is true about the intermediate bearings as well, if they were these systems would have been delivered this way. Several members here have had great success with converting the outboard bearings on the jet pump to oil bath, when they pull the cone the oil looks good, only one guy had a bit of water contamination, but I’ve also seen those members talk about the gear oil disappearing, well it’s going out the seals. Have a good look at the seals, the leading one, facing the bow, is set up to keep water out. These oil bath conversion members have a system and it works for them and I can’t argue with their success.
The other more important thing to me is that the EPNOC grease does not lose its lubricating qualities when water gets in it as the water blends with the grease in such away that there is no loss of lubrication-to a point of course, just like the water proof grease you use on the trailer bearings. EPNOC grease is a low viscosity grease that flows around inside the bearing cavity as the shaft is spinning at up to 8000 rpm. When I was packing the cones the last time I serviced them I was using a seal pick to stir the grease to remove any air pockets, as I stirred the grease it became like syrup and flowed, as well as sticking to the seal pick and tented as I drew it out.
Gear oil on the other hand is not tolerant of water contamination and loses the ability to provide lubrication once water intrudes into it, ask off roaders who got water in their differentials and then lost the diffs due to lubrication failure. So, if the maintenance is done as per the service manual (check every 100 hours for water contamination) the EPNOC grease works just fine. Heck there is a member here who had 750 hours on his boat and had never pulled the cones before and not only did he NOT have issues, and while the area under the cones was thin on EPNOC grease, it was pristine, he added new EPNOC grease installed new O rings on the cones and he was off to the races.
