cbo111

cbo111

Active Member
As part of annual prop service, I am having some trouble getting the grease to go into the zirc fitting. I followed the Hartzell manual instructions, removing one of the fittings and cleaning it out with a wire. Trying to inject Aeroshell #6 into the other side of the blade with a standard automotive grease gun. Nothing seems to go into the fitting, it just blobs around the outside. It definitely is not coming out the side with the fitting removed. Is there a special attachment I need to get for the grease gun? Temperature in the hangar is in the 40's....maybe the grease is too solid from the cold temp? Any help would be greatly appreciated. :confused:

cbo
RV-7A
 
Are you pulling the fitting on the opposite side of the hub, or the one next to it. In other words, if your prop is horizontal and you pull one of the top fittings, are you filling from the one on the botton that lines up with it?
 
If the prop is horizontal, I tried to grease the top fitting and removed the fitting below.
 
May be a clogged zerk...take out the one you are trying to put grease into and make sure it flows.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think I put grease in the rear fitting and looked for flow out the corresponding front fitting hole...
 
deene said:
May be a clogged zerk...take out the one you are trying to put grease into and make sure it flows.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think I put grease in the rear fitting and looked for flow out the corresponding front fitting hole...
Click to expand...

I agree that it sounds like a clogged fitting. My Hartzell maintenance manual says to grease from the leading edge fitting and to remove the trailing edge one. It also says to put it just six pumps, and when I talked to Hartzell directly, they said to NOT just pump until you see grease coming out the backside, or you'd be putting too much in. So now I put in six squirts every hundred hours, and call it done.

When I consider what can happen with a thrown prop blade, I follow Hartzell's recommendations exactly!
 
Thanks for the quick info. I finally figured it out. My cheap grease gun had a hard rubber insert in the tip that wouldn't seal around the zirc. I tried a different fitting and it worked great.
cbo
 
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