Squeaks of summer - I would prefere silence

[Snarf77]

I've never installed zerk grease points before. If I had known how easy it was after you bought the correct tap and zerk sizes, I would have done it long ago. Watch out squeaks, or you might get zerk'd!!!



Hope this thread has maybe helped others with their noise Jeeps.

Excellent. I'd like to see a brief how-to with pictures of how you did the zerk fitting. I've never done one myself. I've pulled bolts and installed fittings, but never drilled and tapped a joint to add one where one didn't exist. Drill press or just a hand drill? Sounds really effective.

[Timmy]

Excellent. I'd like to see a brief how-to with pictures of how you did the zerk fitting. I've never done one myself. I've pulled bolts and installed fittings, but never drilled and tapped a joint to add one where one didn't exist. Drill press or just a hand drill? Sounds really effective.

Because they are simple enough, I didn't think to do a write-up. If I do another one, I'll take pics.

Process is:

1) Drill with 7/16" drill bit.
2) Tap with 1/4" x 28 thread tap bit (since it's only for a zerk, I just put it on my cordless drill and went really slow.)
3) Screw in 1/4" x28 thread zerk (straight, 45deg, or 90deg angle.)

In my case, since I tapped it using my drill, I'm sure the threads were not _perfect_ so I also put some teflon tape on the zerk to make sure it was in tight. Who knows if this is good practice or not. The reality is, they were for greasing the rubber bushings on my lower control arms, so it's not like I was really concerned if this was best practice or not.

They do make zerk's in different sizes. I ran across metric versions of 6mm, 8mm and 10mm. The problem is, the auto store didn't have taps that matched the thread count. Seems like 1/4" is the standard US size (when, oh when will we get off this stupid english measuring system. I truly hate it.) One thing I couldn't figure out is they had 1/8" zerk's, and they are bigger than the 1/4". How does a smaller measurement equate to a larger threaded fitting?



After posting this, I did run across this site that shows a bunch of different zerk's, and I read on another forum that if you're going to put one in, put in the larger size (not sure why they said this, they just said, if you're going to do it, do it right by installing a 1/8")

I see on the following site that there are tapered zerk's, straight zerks, zerks called PTF. They seem to give a nice write-up of each and why you'd use one over the other.

http://www.saeproducts.com/grease-fittings.html