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Acceptable grease for nose gear

New owner, took nose wheel pants off to inspect tire and found a zerk fitting in very front. Does it use normal auto grease?
 
New owner, took nose wheel pants off to inspect tire and found a zerk fitting in very front. Does it use normal auto grease?

It is very nice to use the same kind of grease that was used before.

In my opinion, you should be able to mix grease type in that application.

Yes you can use auto grease that you have on hand or whatever is your preference. I have been using auto grease on my RV-6 airframe for over 23-years except for my Hartzell prop and then I used the grease Hartzell recommends for the prop.
 
Rv14 docs say use marine axle grease. It prob more important to not mix greases. If you don’t know prob should disassemble, clean and regrease then use the same grease from now on. I don’t know if marine axle grease is better than something else.
 
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I honestly don't know why they put a fitting there. Every year I disasemble the nose wheel assembly and clean and grease everything. I stopped filling the cavity between the bushings a few years ago because it uses soooo much grease that never goes anywhere. - We dont fill the void in our wheels between the bearings.
Now I just put a grease film on each bushing and re-assemble. When I disasemble a year latter there is still plenty of grease. I see no benifit from filling that cavety and then adding more grease with a grease gun.
I have no wear on my bushings after 500 hours flying out of a grass strip. Someone please chime-in if I am missing something.
 
I honestly don't know why they put a fitting there. Every year I disasemble the nose wheel assembly and clean and grease everything. I stopped filling the cavity between the bushings a few years ago because it uses soooo much grease that never goes anywhere. - We dont fill the void in our wheels between the bearings.
Now I just put a grease film on each bushing and re-assemble. When I disasemble a year latter there is still plenty of grease. I see no benifit from filling that cavety and then adding more grease with a grease gun.
I have no wear on my bushings after 500 hours flying out of a grass strip. Someone please chime-in if I am missing something.

I agree.... The only thing I would add is to use boat trailer lube. I also use it on my wheel bearings. It is very sticky and stays in place.

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/SLR...Rank=9&keywordInput=boat+trailer+bearing+lube
 
Jeff, you state the zerk is on the "very front" is greasing that zerk going to lubricate the wheel bearings or the strut brace?
 
Look it up

It’s normally best to find out what your manufacture recommends. When I got mine (Cleveland - 2005) new they had a label on them that recommended using AeroShell 22, that’s what I use. I do realize the nose wheel is not a Cleveland wheel, so you could use what ever you want on the nose wheel and fork but if your mains have a recommended grease you may as well use the same on the nose wheel bearings and fork.
I just did a Google search and found this from a 2014 KitPlanes article:

And Now—the Grease
It’s time to grease the wheel bearing. This calls for the question, which grease? There are at least two possible choices to consider just among AeroShell products. AeroShell Grease 5 is a good choice for wheel bearings and is well-priced at $6.85 per tube for the budget-minded mechanic who still wants a good product. AeroShell Grease 22 is a synthetic grease that Shell specifically recommends for wheel bearings, but it is more expensive at $11.85 per tube. Exxon Mobil also makes a suitable synthetic grease called Mobilgrease 28. It runs about one dollar more per tube than AeroShell 22. Note: Grove specifically recommends AeroShell 22, but Cleveland recommends Mobil. If you decide to switch grease from one type to another, you must thoroughly clean off all of the old grease and replace the felt seals before doing so.

Back to the original question, it does not really help much to use the zerk fitting to grease the nose fork, you’ll find that it’s easier to just remove the nose gear fork during your condition inspection and grease it when you put it back on like others have said already. Just remember that there is a brake out force that the fork should be set at, not sitting it properly will cause problems. On my RV7A I use a fish scale and brake out force is 22 lbs.
 
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