Driveshaft Removal...

[Grenvilleter]

Pull the plunger rod back out, unscrew the pump portion and recheck your cartridge. Air can be a little stubborn to get out and if you have air in the system, it will prevent the grease from coming out.

The air will compress instead of the pump actually moving grease out the nozzle. Each pump should lay down a bead of grease on a piece of cardboard about 1/4" wide and 1/2" long.

You may just have to fool with the plunger/spring pushing the grease up to the edge of the cartridge and then screw it back on tight. If the cartridge has any dents or damage to it, perhaps the spring loaded piston that actually pushes the grease up "tight" to the pump is not actually pushing.

Keep fooling with it and perhaps it's time to try a new cartridge as well or maybe you are flogging a dead horse with your current gun.

Maybe you should throw out the grease gun and buy another one. Hell...this isn't rocket science

I've had grease guns that were not worth carrying home and their price reflected their usefulness.

 

[TheDurk]

Try this, after you release the piston and push in the pull rod, start to unscrew the top off the gun, just until you hear a little air escape out the threads. Don't unscrew all the way, or you will have a very big, greasy mess. Then retighten and pump the lever a few more times until you feel it engage the grease.

 

[Mel0]

Pull the plunger rod back out, unscrew the pump portion and recheck your cartridge. Air can be a little stubborn to get out and if you have air in the system, it will prevent the grease from coming out.

The air will compress instead of the pump actually moving grease out the nozzle. Each pump should lay down a bead of grease on a piece of cardboard about 1/4" wide and 1/2" long.

You may just have to fool with the plunger/spring pushing the grease up to the edge of the cartridge and then screw it back on tight. If the cartridge has any dents or damage to it, perhaps the spring loaded piston that actually pushes the grease up "tight" to the pump is not actually pushing.

Keep fooling with it and perhaps it's time to try a new cartridge as well.

Grease is coming out but probably only about 1/16 wide. Ill mess with it again and get back. Thanks for all the help.

 

[Mel0]

Try this, after you release the piston and push in the pull rod, start to unscrew the top off the gun, just until you hear a little air escape out the threads. Don't unscrew all the way, or you will have a very big, greasy mess. Then retighten and pump the lever a few more times until you feel it engage the grease.

I did take the top off earlier when I was fooling around with it and that's what I expected was a big mess but the grease just sat in there......The gun has a small screw at the top to relieve pressure, use that instead? I mean let the air out.

 

[Grenvilleter]

Anyone remember the old style grease guns that was manually filled from a pail of grease...no cartridge ?
Growing up on a farm in the '60's, a grease gun was a well used tool on all the machinery.
Those grease guns could be stubborn to burp out the air and you would have air pockets within the grease itself in the tube as it was impossible to fill completely with no air pockets.

As TheDurk mentioned burping the gun, it brought back memories of doing this numerous times between each fill up.

 

[TheDurk]

I did take the top off earlier when I was fooling around with it and that's what I expected was a big mess but the grease just sat in there......The gun has a small screw at the top to relieve pressure, use that instead? I mean let the air out.

There's your problem!! No mess when the pull rod is in is very bad. It means the piston is hung up and not applying pressure to the grease column. Take the cartridge out and figure out why the piston is not ascending through the cylinder.

You did remove both caps from the cartridge, right? The metal one at the top and the plastic one at the bottom, right?

 

[TheDurk]

Anyone remember the old style grease guns that was manually filled from a pail of grease...no cartridge ?
Growing up on a farm in the '60's, a grease gun was a well used tool on all the machinery.
Those grease guns could be stubborn to burp out the air and you would have air pockets within the grease itself in the tube as it was impossible to fill completely with no air pockets.

As TheDurk mentioned burping the gun, it brought back memories of doing this numerous times between each fill up.

We just took ours to the gas station, and the guy filled it up from his air gun that ran off a big drum. He charged us a penny a pump cycle. Tractors and implements have a lot of zerks.

 

[Grenvilleter]

I did take the top off earlier when I was fooling around with it and that's what I expected was a big mess but the grease just sat in there......The gun has a small screw at the top to relieve pressure, use that instead? I mean let the air out.

That screw should let the air out but only if the spring/piston is pushing against the bottom of the grease in the tube.

The grease should have come gushing out when you removed the pump off the tube.
Obviously, something is preventing the piston/spring from pushing on the bottom of the grease within the cartridge.

Will the end that the pull rod comes out turn off the "tube" part of the gun for examination? My grease guns do.

Will the piston fit inside of the grease cartridge and push the grease up?

Does the spring still have integrity?

Did you remove both end caps from the tube of grease?

I'm sure you will figure it out. Like I said...it's not rocket science.

 

[Grenvilleter]

We just took ours to the gas station, and the guy filled it up from his air gun that ran off a big drum. He charged us a penny a pump cycle. Tractors and implements have a lot of zerks.

Ahhhh.... that's what the zerk was for at the base of the pump. I never could figure out why anyone would want to grease a grease gun. Never thought about buying a fill up via the zerk.

I thought everyone just plunged the tube in the pail of grease numerous times while pulling up on the plunger. This only worked a few times however as the level of grease went down in the pail.

Then you would try to fill up the tube with a spoon or paddle and then work all the air out. When you got them burped, they went pretty good until almost empty and you would have maybe 1 or 2 zerks left to do.

You would madly cycle the plunger up and down trying to get that last little bit of grease up to the pump to try and get finished and not have to fill up the gun again.
We always had 2 or 3 guns at any one time on the go but you would always have a favorite that seemed to work better than the rest.

 

[Mel0]

I think I've had enough screwing around with this gun.:redbrick: I've tried everything, pulled the whole thing apart, reloaded, made sure all air was out by either loosening the head, opening the screw or both. Grease comes out like you said, about 1/4" wide 1/2" long. Although it doesn't seem like it has much resistance even when attached to a zerk. After I try pumping on a zerk and then pump it while it's off the grease is only about 1/16" wide coming out. This really can't be this complicated so I'm ready to ditch this 2o some dollar gun and get something else. Any recommendations??? Do I need something with a high psi rating? Only other thing I could possibly think of is the zerk is bad but Ive tried it on numerous other zerk and I get the same result. I can't image every one of them is bad...that and I can push the ball in with a screwdriver.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[TheDurk]

I think I've had enough screwing around with this gun.:redbrick: I've tried everything, pulled the whole thing apart, reloaded, made sure all air was out by either loosening the head, opening the screw or both. Grease comes out like you said, about 1/4" wide 1/2" long. Although it doesn't seem like it has much resistance even when attached to a zerk. After I try pumping on a zerk and then pump it while it's off the grease is only about 1/16" wide coming out. This really can't be this complicated so I'm ready to ditch this 2o some dollar gun and get something else. Any recommendations??? Do I need something with a high psi rating? Only other thing I could possibly think of is the zerk is bad but Ive tried it on numerous other zerk and I get the same result. I can't image every one of them is bad...that and I can push the ball in with a screwdriver.

Thanks again for all the help.

There is a one-way check valve, usually a ball or plug with a spring, inside the pump. It sounds like this is stuck so you don't develop any pressure. If it were me, I'd pull it apart and blow it out with air and carb cleaner.

But if you want to start fresh, any old gun is fine. Just get one with a flexible hose if you plan to grease the DS with the 4Runner on the ground unless your lift is humongous.

 

[Grenvilleter]

Probably a good plan on getting another gun. Your current gun is making a fool of you and it knows you are unfamiliar.

Getting a new one with a flex hose is the most practical one to have as you can reach more difficult spots with the extended flex hose. Sometimes it takes three hands to operate it however. The flex hose can be more difficult to get it to make the grease go into the zerk without a third hand to hold the hose square on the zerk.

As TheDurk said, any ole gun will/should work however. They make an incredible amount of pressure when working properly so a high psi unit is not req'd and I'll bet anything your zerks are just fine.

At least you got one or two pumps that worked the way it should but as TheDurk mentioned, clean out the pump part and see WTF is happening there. These really are simple devices and no one should have to go through what your experiencing.