Grease Guns - they are a mystery !

[macabethiel]

Well today decided the drive gates could do with greasing and the bottom arms have nice standard nipples that are easy to reach.

Put a new cartridge in my Hilka Mini Grease Gun and removed the metal cover seal. Inserted cartridge into casing with the plunger fully back, screwed it into the head of the gun.

After some pumping nothing came out ? Released the little lever and the plunger pushed in all the way. Funny thought I should it not have just gone in partway ? Tried pumping it using the plunger. No grease came out ?

Unscrewed head and of course out comes the cartridge and a load of grease all over my hands. Unable to screw back in. Every time I pulled back the plunger and locked it out in the course of screwing the head back on I caught the little catch and it all came out again.

After putting in some extra grease into the cartridge from my Tub of Grease managed to get it back together again. Now it suddenly works just fine and greased the said gates.

I now have grease up to my elbows, grease all over two good rags now in the bin. About 30 ml of grease dispensed into the gates. About 200 ml of grease everywhere else.

What am I doing wrong or is it the nature of the beast ??

As I post this no doubt the gun will carry on pushing out grease despite me pulling the plunger back.