The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk greasing a shackle bolt

I know that it is often recommended to raise the truck and take the load of the wheels to lubricate king pins but would this also apply to lubing a shackle bolt? I have new shackles/bolts but one is very reluctant to take grease.

It shouldn't make any difference, however, if you want to get the load off of it, you will have to support it by the frame, rather than the axle to get the weight off the shackle. I would be more suspect of a stuck/dirty grease fitting before a loaded/unloaded issue.

I would support it from the frame. I will take out the fitting although it was a new one which came with the shackle bolt. I have been getting grease into the bolt but with an excessive amount of pressure.

Insert a long pry bar, the longer the better, between the spring and the frame, near the shackle pin, and work the spring up and down with the pry bar while you try to inject grease into the fitting. Leave weight on the wheels and be careful; the pry bar can slip on the spring while you are pushing on it. It takes two people to do this. The plugged fitting is also a good possibility.

Harvester

I've had brand new zerk fittings with casting flash that kept them from allowing grease through them.

If this is one of the stock funny threaded shackles, it may be that the grease hole happens to be sitting pretty tight on the shackle threads and there's not much clearance in there for the grease. It will probably wear in eventually but exercising the shackle may make it easier. I would just have somebody jump up and down in the bed when I was greasing it instead of bothering to jack it up.

When I removed my springs and shackle assemblies I was amazed at how tightly packed the bolts were with dry grease.I had to soak and ream the old grease out.If your bolts haven't been lubed in a long time,this might be the case with yours,not allowing the new grease to flow.When you lube them,make sure you see the new grease squeeze out past the cork seals. The old grease will be most likely grayish and the new darker.Then you know you've really packed it with new lube.

It took me two days to lube my truck I put new fittings on but it was still tough to do...I have one of those high end lube guns and kept trying until I felt I had enough lube in. If you have compressor you can get grease guns for them I would try that approach... Peter

Hi olblu!

Harvester's suggestion will most likely work. That's the way it usually worked when I was doing that stuff over 50 years ago! An easy 'fix' if it does work!