Tweet
Moderator Note: The post below was extracted from the https://gdrvowners.com/forum/operati...-the-cree-3000 thread. Title has been amended to reflect the actual name of the component (thanks, Rob!). -Howard
We were hearing the equalizer and spring mount bolts binding when we ran the tongue jack hooking up and leveling. 7,000 miles on the trailer we bought in March. Crawled underneath and only two zerks out of fourteen would take grease. Reading the posts here I can see there are questions about what helps relieve the lock on the grease holes inside the bolts. I unloaded the springs using blocks, jacks stands and the tongue jack. All take grease now, some were dry, that would explain the binding we heard. Pictures of the unloading process attached.
1. Lower tongue jack to lowest position.
2. Place robust jack stands underneath frame rails. I could have positioned these further back to increase the lever effect but I did not want to exceed the distance from the tongue jack to the axles as this was probably the design criteria used to size the frame beam depth and weight.
3. Raise the tongue jack until spring mount bolts take grease. In my case it was to the extent of travel until ALL the bolts were open.
The zerks on the spring mount bolts are different from those on the CRE3000 equalizer bolts. The bolt heads are both 11/16" SAE but the spring mount bolts use metric threaded zerks (6mm x 12.8mm). I was not pleased with the performance of the hydraulic lock of these zerks on any of the tips of my grease guns. So I went to the parts store and sourced six metric zerks that duplicate the profile of the zerks supplied with the CRE3000 bolts and replaced the six spring mount bolt zerks. Now I can grease fourteen zerks with one tip and no mess.
We were hearing the equalizer and spring mount bolts binding when we ran the tongue jack hooking up and leveling. 7,000 miles on the trailer we bought in March. Crawled underneath and only two zerks out of fourteen would take grease. Reading the posts here I can see there are questions about what helps relieve the lock on the grease holes inside the bolts. I unloaded the springs using blocks, jacks stands and the tongue jack. All take grease now, some were dry, that would explain the binding we heard. Pictures of the unloading process attached.
1. Lower tongue jack to lowest position.
2. Place robust jack stands underneath frame rails. I could have positioned these further back to increase the lever effect but I did not want to exceed the distance from the tongue jack to the axles as this was probably the design criteria used to size the frame beam depth and weight.
3. Raise the tongue jack until spring mount bolts take grease. In my case it was to the extent of travel until ALL the bolts were open.
The zerks on the spring mount bolts are different from those on the CRE3000 equalizer bolts. The bolt heads are both 11/16" SAE but the spring mount bolts use metric threaded zerks (6mm x 12.8mm). I was not pleased with the performance of the hydraulic lock of these zerks on any of the tips of my grease guns. So I went to the parts store and sourced six metric zerks that duplicate the profile of the zerks supplied with the CRE3000 bolts and replaced the six spring mount bolt zerks. Now I can grease fourteen zerks with one tip and no mess.
Attached Files