A lot of people new to tractors may not know how to use a grease gun. When growing up on a farm, one way to get in really, REALLY big trouble would be to forget to grease equipment you were using…and have your dad catch you.

Farm dads know the value of grease in keeping their equipment running. There are a ton of moving parts on tractors and implements, and little fittings, called "zerks" to allow pushing grease in to lubricate those areas. And there's a real simple formula for most of those tractor components…the more you keep them lubricated with grease, the longer they last.

When I worked in a dealership and someone was wanting to trade in a piece of equipment, many times they'd apologize for how greasy it was. There was no apology needed. The more grease I saw on an implement or tractor, the more I knew the guy trading it in had been meticulous about maintaining it. If I saw areas that were supposed to have grease that were dry, I knew a repair could be coming in that area. And it was really amazing when a tradein came in all covered with grease, 15 minutes with a heated power washer bath and it looked like a new one. The bottom line is, proper lubrication of equipment is extremely important to a long, productive life.

This video looks at some different designs of grease guns, what zerks look like and how to know when the area is filled with grease. What I don't talk much about is how often to grease the different parts of a tractor or implement, and that's where you need the owner's manual. It will identify every grease fitting on a piece of equipment and tell you maximum service intervals between lubrications. Having said that, in 25 years in the equipment business and a lifetime on the farm I've never seen a piece of equipment fail because it was overgreased.

If you want a better grease gun that doesn't require near as much work to load cannisters, check out the Lube Shuttle system here:    • LUBE SHUTTLE   The Best Grease Gun EV...  .

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