Track Lubrication

[Mark McKeown]

This question has probably been asked 500 times but a search brought up nothing. How do you lubricate the tracks on a 350 using the strange grease fittings? Can or should you put zerk fittings on or are there adapters or what? The ones on my dozer have plastic covers on them that are still there. Thanks,

Mark

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

There's a fitting for the end of the hose on a grease gun that fits those button heads. I think one can get them at a NAPA store. You use a fairly runny lube in the rollers, too, not chassis grease. Most folks use JD Corn Head grease these days, although SAE 140 gear lube works as well.

You also can replace the button head fittings with zerks, although they sometimes tend to get damaged while using the crawler. My 420 has zerks on it, and once in a while I'll scrunch one, usually when working in a ditch and the side of the track frame winds up riding along the side of the ditch....

Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you put a little lube in fairly often. The seals in the rollers tend to let the lube out as they're designed more to keep dirt out than to keep the lube in. The biggest problem most crawlers run into is that they don't get enough lube in the rollers.....

Stan