Stripping out my grease fittings! WOO-HOOO!!

[KD1977]

Yeah so my '89 BII saw a little beach action in it's day; sand up around the linkage & embedded into the excess grease around the tie rod boots and such. Apparently whomever was doing the servicing didn't bother to wipe things down before using the grease gun because three out of four fittings were spitting up every time I went to grease them. Upon further inspection I found grit down inside the fittings. Out of respect for my Dad's driveway I bought a package of universal grease fittings and crawled under there to replace them tonight. Lucky me, so far two of them have stripped out!!! Am I just an idiot or are these things improper? I mean I wasn't cranking them down for dear life, I was totally gentle and watched closely as I went at it with a wrench. I did notice the OE fittings had a taper to the threading whereas the aftermarkets were cylindrical.

Go ahead. Call me an idiot.

[TJDukit82]

You could get some tap in grease fittings then you wouldn't have to worry about drilling and tapping threads.

[vabronconut]

Yeah so my '89 BII saw a little beach action in it's day; sand up around the linkage & embedded into the excess grease around the tie rod boots and such. Apparently whomever was doing the servicing didn't bother to wipe things down before using the grease gun because three out of four fittings were spitting up every time I went to grease them. Upon further inspection I found grit down inside the fittings. Out of respect for my Dad's driveway I bought a package of universal grease fittings and crawled under there to replace them tonight. Lucky me, so far two of them have stripped out!!! Am I just an idiot or are these things improper? I mean I wasn't cranking them down for dear life, I was totally gentle and watched closely as I went at it with a wrench. I did notice the OE fittings had a taper to the threading whereas the aftermarkets were cylindrical.

Go ahead. Call me an idiot.

ok i'll tae you up on this one, your an idiot ! feel better? lol grease fittings suck nothing cn be done about them, go buy a kit and have them at the ready, buy steel ones not the aluminum though

[KD1977]

Sheesh.

Yeah I pretty much have to learn everything the hard way.

So here's what happened--->Those replacement fittings were indeed crap(thanks, large multinational auto parts chain who's name rhymes with 'Glad-Pants'). As stated above the stock fittings had this taper to the threading, which kinda makes them self-tapping in a sense. So I was able to salvage two of the stock ones by cleaning them out with carb cleaner and a toothpick, and the other two I managed to NOT strip out. So everything's functional and not regurgitating black lithium grease all over the place.

I will definitely keep an eye out for self-tapping fittings in the future. Or hit up the junkyard for actual Ford fittings.

[TJDukit82]

The tap in ones I found were actually on amazon. When I did the lift kit on my jeep the grease fittings that came with it were tiny and as soon as i went to put grease in them they all broke. The tap in ones were great they have ribs to hold them in and I never had a problem with them. I just had to drill out the holes to the right size and tap them in with a hammer and a deep socket that fit around right.