Loading a grease gun.

[Chris142]

A few months ago I found a nice grease gun laying in the street. It had Rotella red grease in it so I have been using it.

It ran out yesterday. I had another tube of another brand of grease so I pulled the rod out untill it got to the catch, unscrewed the top and pulled the empty tube out.

I removed the plastic cap and metal pull tab from the new tube. Stuck the tube in(It will only go in one way), screwed the gun back together and pushed the rod back in.

Thing won't pump now. I squeeze the lever and nothing comes out. I spent prolly 45 mins pumpin it. Finally gave up with 2 zerks ungreased.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[moribundman]

Now you know why someone threw it out.

 

[road_rascal]

The ones we have at work have a spring loaded plunger that you have to pull out before you put the tube of grease in and screw the cap back on. Once the tube of grease is in you 'unlock' the spring loaded plunger and you're good to go. Don't know what else to tell ya.

 

[Chris142]

Thats what I done.

 

[rokky]

The grease tube will go in both ways. If you put the pull-tab in first then the plunger will not enter the tube.

Leave the barrel of the grease gun loose. Pull the rod out and make it catch the lock on the plunger. Then push rod/plunger into the tube. This will force air out. With barrel loose, start pumping. It should work. Re-tighten barrel to pump.

 

[9c1]

Some guns have an air bleed at the top. You might need to bleed the air out in order to get grease to the pump.

 

[George7941]

Definitely looks like you have a air-lock. You need to get that air out. Loading in grease in tubes introduces air and that can be really annoying, that is why, years ago, I switched over to bulk loading of grease guns from a pail, using a National-Spencer grease filler pump. The filler pumps are not expensive.

 

[Chris142]

I let the gun sit all week. It works today. It must have pushed the air out?

 

[doitmyself]

You are probably right. Some guns are just "quirky" getting the the pump to "prime" after a new tube insertion.

I have always (mostly) had luck by first screwing on the pump end a few threads, then releaseing the plunger. This allows air to escape out of the loose threads. Be careful to engage enough threads so the gun end doesn't fly off. As above, some guns have a bleeder screw.

 

[alreadygone]

One end of tube has removable cap. The other end has pop top that leaves metal ring on paper tube. Like to see a tube go in either way.

Bob

 

[gfcrane]

I have fiddled and fought with hand operated grease guns for 30 years and never found one that wasn't difficult. The originals that required grease to be sucked in by retracting the plunger were always full of air bubbles. My first cartridge gun seemed like heaven for a short while but eventually got air too and so did all the others over the years. I finally got disgusted and bought a compressor and an air operated gun. So far,three years, it works fine and just spits the air out.