How to Replace a Broken Grease Zerk
In today’s video, we’re going to walk you through the process of replacing a broken grease zerk on a grapple. If you’ve ever dealt with a broken grease fitting, you know how frustrating it can be – especially if it’s one that’s hard to access or repair. Whether you’re dealing with a tractor grapple or any piece of heavy equipment, knowing how to properly replace a broken grease zerk is an essential skill for maintaining your machinery and ensuring it runs smoothly.
Grease zerks, also known as grease fittings, are essential for keeping the moving parts of your equipment well-lubricated. If one of them breaks or gets damaged, it can result in a lack of lubrication, leading to premature wear and tear on your equipment. Replacing a broken grease zerk helps to keep your machinery running efficiently and prevents unnecessary damage in the long run.
The first step in replacing a broken grease zerk is determining what type of fitting you have. There are two main types of grease zerks: threaded and pressed-in. Threaded zerks are typically easier to replace, but pressed-in zerks are increasingly more common and cheaper to manufacture. The simplest way to figure this out is to compare the broken fitting to a good one.
A threaded grease zerk has a base that looks like a nut, which allows it to be tightened or loosened. This makes it easier to replace with the right size fitting. A pressed-in fitting doesn’t have threads, and it’s held in place by the pressure of being pressed into the hole. These can be a bit trickier to replace, as it often requires tapping the hole and converting it to a threaded zerk.
For our case, I had accidentally broken off the grease zerk on the left side of my grapple (if you're sitting on the tractor), while the one on the right side was still intact. So, we decided to remove the good zerk and inspect it to determine what type we were dealing with. Using the good zerk, we could easily confirm that it was a threaded grease fitting.
After determining that the fitting was threaded, we began the process of removing the broken stub that was still stuck in the grapple. Our first attempt was to use a screwdriver to turn it counterclockwise, hoping to loosen it. Unfortunately, this didn’t generate enough pressure to break the stub free.
At this point, we used an EZ-Out tool to remove the broken piece. An EZ-Out is an extractor is a tool for removing broken or seized screws. There are two types: one has a spiral flute structure, commonly called an easy out after the trademarked name EZ-Out; the other has a straight flute structure. We recommend having a set of EZ-Outs in your toolbox, especially for situations where a broken bolt or zerk needs to be removed. If you don’t already own a set, check out my Amazon Affiliate link for a high-quality EZ-Out set here: https://amzn.to/3QMfOq5. Our EZ-Out quickly got the broken zerk stub out, making it much easier to continue the repair.
Next, we needed to find a suitable replacement for the broken grease fitting. We used a plastic thread gauge to measure the size of the threads. While these gauges are handy, they tend to be a little inaccurate, so we weren’t fully relying on it for precision. The best way to find a replacement is by taking the good zerk to an auto parts store. After some searching and measuring, we determined that the correct replacement was a 6mm x 1 thread zerk. We picked up an assortment of zerks in that size, and once we returned, we were able to successfully install the new zerk. It fit perfectly, and the grapple was ready to be used again.
Had the grease fitting been pressed-in instead of threaded, the repair would have been a little more complicated. For this zerk, we would need to remove the pin that attaches the hydraulic cylinder to the grapple and tap it out to create threads for a new threaded fitting. Trying to install a new pressed-in fitting is rarely successful.
Overall, this process took us just under an hour, including the trip to the parts store. Once the new zerk was installed, we were back to using the grapple with proper lubrication, making sure everything ran smoothly again.
Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more DIY repair tips and tutorials. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever had to replace a grease zerk and what tools you use for the job.
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