???? Where are the grease nipples!

**Flyingpony** · 8th September 2005, 12:47

Went to grease up the bearings front-rear wheel, swing arm and steering head, but didn't get very far because I can't find the grease nipples. They must be there somewhere. You know like the ones you find on the trusty Land Rovers from yesterday year.

You've got to be kidding that I must dismantle the bike to grease those items, in which case, how do I dismantle that lot and grease them up?

Do the bearings have to be removed, greased and then reinserted?
Don't like the sound of that, will probably break the bearing with my 4lb hammer trying to bash them out.

What do I have to be careful about with dismantling the bike and it's reassembly? Namely tightness or lack there of on the nuts/bolts holding it all together.

What grease should I use? Thinking of trying to find Marine Synthetic stuff if it exists because that's designed to handle water exposure.

What kind of bearings am I looking for in those positions and how many are there? Flat brushes, flat pins, roller ball bearings, ....?

This is starting to sound like a major time consuming job. No wonder bike shop asked for a trillion dollars (figuratively spoken).

Advice please from the sessioned mechanic please.

Thanks,
Horse.

**vifferman** · 8th September 2005, 12:54

No nipples please - we're not British.

Modern bikes don't have grease nipples. The bearings have seals and are usually greased for life ('life' being 4 or 5 years, the planned lifetime of a bike). All is not lost, however. You can grease wheel and steering-head bearings without bashing the bearings out. Most bearings (save those in the engine room) are ball race bearings. The swingarm bearings on many bikes are the tricky ones as they often require 'factory' tools, however others can sometimes be substituted.
The bearings in suspension linkages are needle rollers or plain bush bearings. Usually.

You may want to use some grease than can stand heat for the wheel bearings due to thir proximity to the brakes, otherwise any good-quality grease should do the job.