Lubrication question

[Guest Shoe1932]

Hello all,

The manual for our 1932 Buick 67 shows the lube points and discusses the type of lubrication and the frequency they should be addressed. There are Zerk grease fittings and also a lot of fittings which have a sharper point than the Zerk fitting. The manual says that many of them (possibly all) need to be lubricated with transmission oil. My dumb question is How to do it. Most of them appear to have a small hole at the end. Is there a special tool or something? I haven't found a description in the manual on how to lube them. There are 3x as many of these fittings as there are the regular Zerk fittings.

I welcome any advice anyone can give me. Thanks

[ply33]

Might just be muddying the water for you, but the pointy ones are probably really Zerk fittings while the more modern looking ones are officially "Alemite Hydraulic" fittings but called "Zerk" fitting by people nowadays. Don't know about Buick, but the modern style weren't used on Plymouth until 1934 so any of them found on an older car were inauthentic replacements. See: Pressure Lubrication Fittings

There used to be oil guns that look like grease guns that can be used to fill those fittings with heavy oil. You should be able to find one in a swap meet. Maybe the heavy equipment world still uses and makes that type of tool as well. And they still make the tip for the older Zerk fittings that you can put on a modern grease gun. Been a while since I checked but I recall seeing them in catalogs from places like Restoration Specialties.

[Guest Shoe1932]

Tanks for the reply.

The fittings I was referring to are the Zerk fittings as shown in your picture (on he left). Oddly enough, there are more modern Alemite fittings on our 32 Buick also,but are mainly on the engine. In the shop manual the Alemite fittings are referred to as Zerk fittings. They might have been swapped out over the years at some point. I did find a company called Restoration Supply Company on line who has Oil Guns. They look the same as one of the old grease guns I have in the garage. Might pick one up and use it with some transmission oil and see how it works.

Thanks

[Bob Engle]

The zirk fittings are correct for 1932 Buicks. 1933 went to alemite type fittings. One of the challenges when going to the correct fittings is that most likely, grease was used in the alemite fittings rather than transmission (90W gear oil). It will be very difficult to generate enough pressure on zirk fittings to force out the old grease. The swap meet guns will need new seals to be workable.

Bob

[Guest Shoe1932]

It visited with the guys at our aaca club meeting on Tuesday and they told me that grease was better than the transmission oil. They came up with a good idea. Their concern is the oil dripping out of the old style zerk fittings. They said to get some newer ball joint fittings and simply remove an old one, put the new one in, squirt in the grease, then pull out the new fitting and re-install the original zerk fitting. Therefore I have the best of both worlds, modern non dripping lubrication and original grease fittings. I will try it and let you know how it works.

Thanks

[Bob Engle]

There are Zirk fittings with the spring loaded ball to seal them. That's a lot of fittings to be switching out to lube the chassis, 25 to 30 fitting on a 32 Buick. One other minor concern would be that the shackle pins are hollow with a radial hole in the center. There are no provisions in the pins or bushings to distribute grease across the width of the pins. It probably is not a problem on tie rod ends as they are a ball joint.

My last point would be that most of these old cars just are not driven many miles in a year. One lube job a year should easily suffice. I have made one concesion, I use a 120 weight gearoil instead of the 80 weight gear oil. It is fairly easy to use the push guns to lube the fittings. Cleaning excess grease around the joints is messy whereas with gear oil, a wash down with cleaner degreaser easily removes the excess oil. I'll stay with the original procedure for my car.

Bob

[Guest gmorse]

Lubrication with transmission grease brought back memories of my 1955 Austin-Healy. The car came with a small hand lube gun that you put trans. oil in. Actually, I used regular ( for the time) chassis grease with no problems. Yes, they looked like the zerk fittings that we are used to. Recommended lube interval was 1000 miles.

Just old memories.

Gary

[Guest Shoe1932]

Bob,

You have talked me into sticking with the original procedure too. I will try 120 weight oil also. This car sat for 15 years and we woke it back up this summer. I am not sure when the last time everything was lubed. I want to do it the right way and I will be ordering an oil gun today. I imagine that some of the fittings will be clogged and filled with grease (from me trying to figure out how to put grease in this style fitting). I know of a few which appear to be painted over. Do you recommend removing them and cleaning out the grease from the fitting before adding oil? Also. Does the 120 weight oil drip much?

i believe in driving our cars at worst 2-3times a month and I want to make sure I keep the fittings well lubricated.

Thanks for your help

[Bob Engle]

I would just attempt to lube with the oil. If the fitting won't take oil, then I would remove the fitting and cleean it up. In general, I have found it easy to wipe off any excess oil with rag as I lube the fittings.

Bob