Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I was doing routine maintenance on my Platinum 24 which includes shooting some grease into the auger rake zerk fittngs.  A day or so later I see this string-like length of grease an inch or so long from the openings in both of the zerk fittings.  I thought these things all had a spring-loaded ball to seal them?  No problem, I say to myself...even though the machine is only a year old and under warranty I'd rather just replace the zerks myself and avoid the hassle....but NO...Ariens appears to have installed press-fit zerks on the rake assembly, so not such a simple replacement.  That's probably why they don't even call out for a separate part for the zerks on their exploded diagram.  It's listed as "rake, left hand with zerk". (Same for the right one)    To replace a $2 zerk fitting, do they expect you to replace the whole auger rake section?  I guess I will be using the warranty after all.  

There are no ball checks on these zerks. A ball check zerk has a very long thread profile to capture the spring and ball assembly. Essentially, if you used that type of zerk, it would stick out a good deal and never be able to be seated and would have have a significant exposed profile. As the rake tubes are always rotating in what could be a bath of hard ice, the lower the profile the better (so they don't catch and pull out). The press fit zerks also retain better in this particular application (rapid curvature of the tube surface and specific thickness of material); a ball check zerk typically has no threads on the very end that can short-change the retention capability whereas the non ball check zerks have barbs all the way to the bottom. I've replaced the press fit zerks when necessary. On some occasions the hole might have to be peened some. Frankly, NLGI 2 grease is plenty able to repel water penetration through the zerk hole (you could use something thicker if you're worried about it). The clearance at the end of the tube would be much more exposed to water infiltration than the zerk hole. There may be some residual pressure on a new machine from the inital grease fill that will ooze out, or from pumping action from the relative oscillating movement of the augers during rotation, but the grease loss is miniscule relative to the fill capacity. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the explanation Snowmann.  You have saved me from lugging my machine back to the dealer.  I will just make sure to keep those well greased to keep stuff from infiltrating the area.  I see what you mean about not being able to use the threaded type now because the rake shaft thickness is only 5/32" thick.  Plenty heavy for it's intended use...just not enough for a pressed in ball-check zerk which has a minimal insert depth of 1/4".  You've restored my faith in Ariens and the Platinum 24 that you recommended to me last year in this forum.

You could also buy some rubber caps used to plug vacuum ports on auto carbs and put them over the fittings if you are that worried.