Button Head Fittings

[Tractor 850]

A question for the members,
On my 440IC I found that most of the button head fittings on the track assembly are broken off.
Would I be better off replacing them with conventional grease fittings or new button fittings?
Are the button fittings still available? If so where?
I welcome your suggestions.

[wwattson]

I'd stay with the button head fittings myself. Go to McMaster-Carr and the 5/8" button head fittings are on page 2135.

www.mcmaster.com

[Gil]

If you have the right fitting for you grease gun, I would definitely use the button head fittings. If you can imagine the force that sheared off your existing fitting you can imagine how easy it would have been to destroy the more fragile and higher profile standard fittings.

You might consider replacing all the fitting on the whole crawler at the same time, at least those you would likely need to service in the field. That way you will not have to carry two grease guns or change fittings. That is of course in areas where you use the same type of grease.

I bought button fittings at my John Deere dealer but they are available pretty much universally. I just checked and there are currently some available in stores (not auctions) on eBay.

[JD440ICD2006]

I would stick with the button heads, they will last longer than standard grease zerks with the heads sticking out.
They are also available from WW Grainger.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/pr ... utton+Head

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

How in heck does someone bust one of these? There's an eyebrow guard.

FWIW, my 420c has had standaed zerks in place of all the button heads since 1966 without issue. So, I know it's not easy to bust one.....

Now, I *have* managed to snap off the zerk on the back end of the lift cylinders a couple of times.

Stan

[Tractor 850]

Thanks for all the help everyone.
I ordered fittings today.
One more thing done.

[Little John]

I was always lead to believe that the button head fittings were for the 'oil' (liquid) in the rollers and not for grease. Either lub would be able to go through either fitting but the fact that the fittings were different 'should' alert you to the need to use the correct lub for each location. I'd think you would want to have an 'oil pumper' (low pressure) for the rollers, since their seals won't take the high pressure of a grease gun. Grease 'gunning' the rollers was always supposed to be a no-no. Mora

[jdemaris]

I was always lead to believe that the button head fittings were for the 'oil' (liquid) in the rollers and not for grease.

That can go either way. Button heads were also used on type of food manufacturing equipment that only used grease. Deere stopped using gear oil in rollers in the late 60s and changed over to "track and roller" grease, and then changed again to "cornhead grease." And, with Deere, the button head was also used for the grease-filled track-adjuster on many machines.

Nice thing with the button-heads is #1 they don't have pointed ends thet get screwed up by by rocks hitting them, and #2 the grease-gun head locks on so you don't have to hold it with your hand. Pointed Zerks don't always work that way.

[Little John]

JD, I was only referring to the 440IC with my comment on the use of the button heads on the rollers. Oil was spec'd. for them. The rest of the tractor did not have button heads as I am aware. I would suppose that one could pump any fluid into the rollers at any pressure one liked. Then one would no doubt find out why JD put the button heads on the tractor and supplied you with a low pressure device to fill the rollers with oil, not grease. Mora

[jdemaris]

JD, I was only referring to the 440IC with my comment on the use of the button heads on the rollers. Oil was spec'd. for them.

As you said, a person can use whatever they like or prefer. Deere called for oil in the rollers for the 440 at the time when it was being sold - not later. Technology changes - and some of those changes are backwards compatible. That's why most people are using high detergent engine oil in older machines now - even though it wasn't called for when they were new. When Deere came out with their "Track and Roller" grease, we got many service bulletins from Deere engineering in Syracuse telling us NOT to use oil, and use the grease instead. That was retroactive to all Deere crawers with greaseable rollers and idlers. The problem with the oil - was complete leak-out once roller bushings and seals were worn. Later, as I recall - when the "C" series crawlers were new - the seal design inside the rollers and idlers was changed and they were much less prone to leakage - and they then became non-greaseable and filled with light oil.

A button-head or Zerk can work just as well when the grease-gun is in the hands of someone that knows what they are doing. Same with a low pressure and high pressure gun. My comments were and are about the fittings in general - not just for 440s. 440s use the same technology as many other crawlers - Deere and others. Zerks get their sharp ends blunted too easily from rocks/debris. Button-heads can take a pretty good beating and still work.

[Gil]

Thanks jdemaris, that was good background on a subject I always wondered about. I had been using someone's brand of sticky track and roller grease. It sounds like you would recommend that next time I buy a tube, I get cornhead grease. (I assume that the two are compatible within an already greased bearing.)

[jdemaris]

Thanks jdemaris, that was good background on a subject I always wondered about. I had been using someone's brand of sticky track and roller grease. It sounds like you would recommend that next time I buy a tube, I get cornhead grease. (I assume that the two are compatible within an already greased bearing.)

I have no idea if any one brand is better than the other. With Deere, sometime after I left the dealership in 1991, "Track and Roller" grease got discontinued, and Deere substituted "Cornhead" grease instead. The idea behind it is that it has low viscosity -yet does not flow like oil, and therefore does not leak out.

There's no question that oil is a better overall lubricant if you can keep it in the roller - but with older rollers it tends to leak out - and then the rollers burn up. I've been using the cornhead grease for years in my two Deeres, Allis Chalmers HD4, and in my Cletrac. With the Cletrac- I rebuilt all the rollers and filled them with 90W oil - but after a year they started to leak a bit and I changed over to grease.