[AT] Wheel bearings

[Greg Hass]

I'm sure everyone is right with their advice but I will add a slightly 
different angle. A person who I went to country school with lived right 
next to the school. His dad bought a John Deere 420 crawler with a 
loader. They used it a lot; I can remember them pulling a 12 foot spring 
tooth harrow a lot. He said when they tiled the farm he spent days in 
first gear pulling a subsoiler opposite the tile runs to get it to work 
better. This was in the late 50's or early 60's. Fast forward to 4 years 
ago; the dad died and even though he had not farmed in 30 years he would 
not sell the crawler even though he had at least 30 offers, he did 
however keep it in running condition. About this time I happened to talk 
to his son, the first I had seen him in 30 years. We got to talking 
about the crawler and he mentioned that they had to replace all the 
rollers that the track ran on. He said they couldn't understand it as 
they took the plugs out and greased them faithfully. It turns out that 
they were to take out the plugs and fill to bearing level with 90 weight 
oil and that would move around and lube the bearings. The grease they 
were putting in just stayed in the center and greased nothing. Expensive 
lesson learned.
                 Greg Hass