I received a letter from Gary about greasing the front axle on his 4550 Mahindra. Those grease zerks on front axles are a little tough to access, sometimes they won't take grease, and they're expensive to repair if they fail. That's because the weight of the tractor is sitting on the bushings that are inside. If you do manage to get grease in there, it probably goes to the wrong part of the bushing, and, at least on my tractor, you're supposed to grease them at least every 50 hours of use. So what do you do?

First off, prepare to get a little dirty. You'll be on your back, underneath the tractor trying to access these grease zerks. I always put a large piece of cardboard in my driveway and drive over it. That way I'm not getting filthy, and if any grease or oil drops, it goes on the cardboard and not on my drive.

This is definitely a time to have a good grease gun. Getting grease in all parts of the front axle is critical to prevent an expensive failure. I use, and recommend, the Lube Shuttle system. Today I'll be showing off their electric grease gun, the AccuGreaser, which is the best product ever for doing a job like this. It is available here: https://asktractormike.com/productsf....

Next, we're going to lift the front end of the tractor off the ground slightly using the front end loader. To lift the axle, drop the loader bucket all the way to the ground. Release your brake and rev up your engine. With the bucket flat, use your joystick to push the front end loader down until it lifts the front wheels up. It doesn't have to be much.

You want to be really careful here, for a normal job I'd be recommending putting jack stands underneath the tractor, but if you use them, you can't put them under the front axles. We want all of the weight off of it. If you can get a jack stand under the front weight carrier, do it, but I'm just going to lift my tractor up about an inch off the ground to do this job and am not going to get under the wheels, or any part, that might fall on me. Shut off the tractor. If you have a joystick lock that can keep it from being accidentally bumped, activate it at this time.

Get your grease gun and shoot the zerks that get lubrication to the areas where the front axle pivots. Without the weight of the tractor on the bushings, the grease will spread evenly around that area. Without the weight off the axle, the grease is going to the path of least resistance, which would likely be the top of the bushing, where it's needed least.

After you're done greasing the axle pivot points, you can let the tractor down and finish the other grease points on the tractor. Because you're got the grease all around that front axle pivot point, you've insured a long life for those components and prevention of a costly failure.

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