When I was getting a new fan belt on the old 3100 and was moving around the generator, I discovered two zerk fittings for grease on the bottom, close to the pivot points. I don't know the vintage of the generator, but it was switched over to 12 volt at some point in the past. It's an old Delco unit. If it is for the generator bearings, I don't see the "escape" hole for the old stuff/overflow to come out (could have overlooked them), or perhaps it's just for the pivots (seems unlikely). Anyone know? Thanks in advance.
Did lots of google searching, nothing seems to come up, just lots of websites with tractor generators. Here's a pic.
I was about to say lots of heavy equipment that uses generators use them , with oil cups you can get dirt in the cups if the cap spring breaks ( and they do not work upside down ) , a zerk we wipe them off before we grease them .the grease ussually comes out the ends behind the pulley and the end caps sometimes have a relief hole it squirms out of . ( otherwise it gets thrown all over the insides of the case and messes up the brushes even though they have a slinger ring ( and I have taken apart many a grease gooo'd generator . )
Stimpy, thanks for the response. I'll take a look and see if there's some relief holes in that think somewhere. I haven't looked at the number on the generator just yet, would be interesting to see if something came up as to what it came off of.
In industrial settings, the #1 killer of electric motors is over greasing. The grease ends up in the windings leading to a short circuit. If you're going to use those zerks, I would go very lightly on the grease.
On a drilling rig, we had 50hp motors that would essentially run 24/7. One shot of grease every 30 days. We would pull the grease fittings out and plug them to keep overzealous hands from greasing them with 4 shots every 12 hours. Just an example.
this is the reason why we took the grease guns away from the operators and off the machines , those guy thought if a little was good , 2-3 more pumps will be better ( some guys would purposely burn up a unit so they get a paid day off by trying to put the whole tube in it ) , on some of the units there was a bronze bushing behind the pulley instead of a ball/needle bearing set, and the grease would ooooz out of it and you would know if they were over greasing it as you had a pulley that looked like it was machined steel from the grease and dirt layers on it , and its no fun if your working near it and it comes loose , it hurts like hell and its a gooey mess . ours was 1 pump per zerk a week if it ran . as for the ones that had the holes some of them had these its a relief fitting they come in several types some are simple holes in a fitting . on units that had no holes in the caps when they were rebuilt they drilled a hole in the cup 180* from the zerk ,
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