I just got off the phone with FT and they have this grease for $23 a tube + s/h.
Does anyone know of other sources that may be less or is that going to be the norm?
Many thanks
I had my local truck parts house order one for me, it came to $20.47 with tax. I don't recall if it was that part number, but it was one of the clay-based lube products listed in the Meritor docs.
I just called my local Cat a mile up the road and they don't have anything.
I thought it was worth a try. By the time I get it from FT it will be about
$30...just seems like I should be able to find a better price.
When I needed the Meritor-specified clay based grease a couple of months ago, I called my local truck parts store (BPS Truck Parts in Baldwin Park, CA), and they made a couple of calls. They found one of the recommended greases and had it for me the next day.
Tom Nale, in our mid Atlantic group got a case of the synthetic clay bases grease. We all got a tube and we redid our brakes by purging the old and replacing it with the synthetic.
Can someone discuss the intervals for replenishing this clay based grease for the Meritor braking system? I doubt I've had this done in 7 years. Judging from the lack of availability at truck repair shops, I'm thinking they hardly ever use this specific grease. And, as discussed in other posts in Yahoo, the use of anything other than a clay based grease can lead to significant problems for the system.
From James Trians some time ago:
As long as they are a clay base I would not see a problem. The brakes only have to be greased 3 times in the life of the pad. We greased them once when the coach was brand new. Only two more times left.
According to the Meritor Maintenance Manual (which I downloaded from the Internet), they should be lubricated every 3 years or 500,000 miles. In my case, every three years.
Does anyone have a partial tube they want to sell me LOL.............I guess
I'll have to bite the bullet and drop the near $30 for FT to send me one. My guess is that our coach has NEVER been greased. Maybe once.....maybe.
My understanding is that our coach was bought new from a past owner of
Tennessee RV, but I'm not 100%.
Either way I have to get it done so I can sleep knowing it's taken care of.
How do you keep mechanics from putting chassis grease into the disk brake zerk grease fittings over the last 7 years?
Barry,
The answer is I'm not sure that someone has not contaminated the system with non-clay based grease. The coach has been serviced by FOT, TN RV, American Motorcoach (Columbus, OH & a certified? FOT repair facility, they honored the MC discount & Mark Harvey said they should know what they're doing), & Cummins. I also do not know what is supposed to happen when non-clay based grease is introduced. Does it cook at the high temps and really mess up things?
At Cummins, I had instructed them to leave the disk brakes zerk fittings alone unless they had the Meritor clay-based grease.
Who really knows without knowing the disk brake behavior with the wrong grease?
Hi,
We know what grease to use for the disc brakes. How much should be put in? Is filling the zerk till you see it acceptable? Or should it just have a small amount put in. Six or seven years back, I had the brakes serviced at the factory. They had to replace the right rear rotor, and pads. Since they had done the previous two years brake service, they covered half the cost. And that was another story. They said that way to much, of the correct grease, had been put in. Thus would not let the caliper release enough. I took that to mean you can overdue the amount of grease. Right or wrong?
Right - over greasing can hydraulically lock the guide pins.
If you don't know what you're doing, I wouldn't attempt greasing the brakes, even with the correct grease. It would be much better to buy the grease, then take it to a good truck repair shop to do the job.
The procedure from the Meritor manual is to fill the caliper with clay based grease, remove the relief valve, then disengage or remove the pawl in the slack adjuster and turn the slack adjuster back to force excess grease out through the relief valve hole. If you don't do that, the excess grease in the caliper can cause the brakes to rub all the time and wear or overheat. I haven't done it yet, but I think I understand the procedure.
Barry Beam has the procedure on his site : Brake Maintenance [ForeForums Foretravel Motorcoach Wiki] (https://wiki.foreforums.com/doku.php?id=technical:brakes:maintenance)
Barry Leavett had a neat trick to keep techs from lubing the caliper zerk fittings with the wrong grease, and that was to put a tie wrap around each of them, which keeps the grease gun from fitting onto the zerk end.