Forgive another beginners question but.. I have for the first time removed one of my wheels to check brakes and grease the hubs. brakes are fine but I have a slight dilemma about how much grease.
I have one book which says 'pack' another which says about a quarter of a grease gun (how do they know how big my grease gun is?) and another which refers to I believe an earlier model with a grease nipple rather than the plug on my 1933 which says give it 4 to 5 squirts to avoid grease on the brakes.
Now, never being one to underdo things I kept squirting into the hole on the basis that I would try to pretty much pack it full. I got to 20 pumps and stopped, so my question, just how much grease should I 'pack'

Andy,

I think if you were to follow the austin lubrication charts to the letter oiling and greasing every day / week / month then there would be grease oozing out all over the place.

I know people have dismantled back axles to discover the grease from the wheel bearings packed all the way down the length of the axle side tubes. At the front it has got nowhere other than past the felt seal into the brakes.

Make sure the felt seals and the surfaces they run on are in good order.
20 pumps will be plenty.

Dad and i do the following:
Hubs a couple of squirts a year.
At the front if they are well packed remove the ali cover nut to allow fresh grease to flow into the small bearing as you pump more in. This stops it being forced past the felt. Wipe excess before replacing cover.

Regards

Rob

Andy

I packed the new bearings with grease when I fitted them and applied a reasonable amount of grease by hand to the inner surfaces of the hubs. this was about 2000 ish miles ago. I have greased them once since then and that was just a few pumps of the grease gun. I have last week stripped them down and found plenty of fresh grease still present!

As an aside I was taught a long time ago at a local agricultural college training session that grease nipples should be greased regularly because quite often they lubricate a pin or a plain bush which requires fresh grease. The key here is the word "fresh". Any lubricant is designed to carry away contaminants from the two bearing surfaces, so regular greasing of kingpins and axle bushes etc etc will ensure that fresh grease is present at the bearing surfaces . In the case of things like wheel bearings it seems that a little discretion is the order of the day as Rob points out, else it will get everywhere!

Steve

thanks, will keep my greasing to a reasonable level