[81sunkisst]

Had my berkley 12 jb pump rebuilt and where you put gear oil in the bowl he put a grease fitting. Is this better or should i just put oil in it?

 

[sleekcrafter]

unless you can disassemble, and wash the grease out completely, stay with the grease. Normaly the Berkeley is filled with gear oil, 80-90wt.

Most of the aftermarket bowls are grease lubed, some rebuild guides advise to switch to grease, some don't. Use caution when greasing, as too much grease, and pressure will pop the shaft seal out of the bowl.

 

[81sunkisst]

What kind of grease should i use?

 

[lefty's pride]

man i dont agree with greasing at all i would be finding a way to get it out if it was a bowl designed to use oil id use oil, the oil is able to flow around the bowl and remove heat from the bushing and are able to disapate the heat much better than the grease, plus there is no passage for the grease to be inserted into the bushing. in most cases grease moves away from the heat.... if ..... you really want to run grease i would run prefered industries grease$$$$$, i run it in my trailer bearings the best grease i have ever see doesn't disapate when heated and can not be removed from metals at all not even carbclean..... but to make my point if the grease burns and breaks down how you going to get it out. to get it out i would be removing the bowl hooking a hose to on eye, and pumping solventvent though till it comes out clean. good luck

 

[FastRat]

What kind of grease should i use?

Rex makes a good grease for the pump etc...i run it in mine & n/p...make sure there's a plug in the other side...take it out & pump grease into the zerk until it comes out the other hole...good to go...just my .02 cents

FastRat

 

[81sunkisst]

The guy that built it run's grease in his. Thanks for the help

 

[krusn56]

I grease mine with red lucas.

 

[cs19]

I like oil better, thats how they were designed to be used. Like sleek said you need to get the grease out if you want to switch back.

 

[jetboatperformance]

Had my berkley 12 jb pump rebuilt and where you put gear oil in the bowl he put a grease fitting. Is this better or should i just put oil in it?

Although somewhat redundant to whats been said above ,the true "grease lube bowls" have little to no "reservoir' as such and they typically have a grease seal retainer snap ring in front of the shaft/bowl seal. Some grease lube bowls even have a double snap ring retained seal. When a true grease lubed bowl is lubed thru the tail shaft plug zerk, a small amount grease is forced into and around the shaft and bushings . When a Berk type bowl is "retro grease lubed" the process depends on pumping enough into the old oil bath cavity to finally fill the Oil void and hope that the grease will eventually find its way to the shaft and bushings allowing for air pockets and hoping the front seal isn't hydraulically "jacked out" in the process . IMO its best to keep oil in the Berk oil lube bowl to start with and frankly I don't understand why one would routinely convert from oil to grease as a matter of course ? :unless for what ever reason the Berk bowl as "designed" , will for some reason no longer hold oil and one wishes to make use of it (the bowl despite that existing problem ),this could result from a multitude of reasons for example if the bowl has suffered a "spun" tail shaft bushing failure that required line boring and sleeving, small cracks, casting defects or its a purely "economic" thing (shaft score in the seal area or etc ...) . That said once a Berk bowl is filled with grease (which is quite a bit) as yours is and then reinstalled you might as well leave it. To extricate all the grease or even the majority of it if lucky is a arduous task requiring heating warming , thining and diluting the remaining "sticky" (likley "hi temp") grease to the point of cleaning and draining same from the bowl oil cavity (not fun) . If this was to be done the time to do it was when the bowl was stripped down for repairs or overhaul . Heres the good news , most pump kits and repair parts/replacement bushings in use are modern coated self lubricating (ptfe) and will pretty much run and survive in anything grease water oil etc as far as oil "carrying of heat" the bowl is constantly bathed in and bombarded with cool water creating a pretty efficiant heat "sink" just my 02 Tom

bushing repair sleeve:

 

[lefty's pride]

another note i'd like to ad is if your going to run grease you might want to run winter grease in warmer weather it will be much more fluid it might be an advantage, i like toms idea, if the bowl was desigened for it thats the way it should be. you do have to rember though im in bc canada lakes dont get warm here, greasing may be a diffrent story down there.

 

[tigertooth]

Pennzoil marine grease in the thrust bearing and b owl bearing. This is a non synthetic roller bearing grease. Do not use lithium based chassis grease on your jet pump Turn the bowl seal around so lip faces forward and thrust seal so lip faces back. lets grease vent and keeps water out of both. Lip seal on bowl is good on new pumps but any cut from fish line or seal abrasion lets oil out of bowl. any lube is better than water lube, especially when running on the trailer. Jacuzzi has done it for 40 years and now A.T. and Aggressor do it too. Must not be all bad. If you remove the other plug when you grease it you will only pump grease out of the other hole and not force grease into the bearing as the plugs are on a common area. Another area of caution is that both bearings only need minimal attention as far as grease goes. I only grease mine a couple of times a year and only about 5 pumps in each bearing. Run my boats hard and have never had a bearing failure in 40 years. Oh,in case some of yopu dont know me my pops name is Jac Sea and I rebuilt this fellers pump.

 

[Amango]

What about water lubed? I just pulled the bowl off a boat i just bought and it has no cover for a Zerk fitting? No threads to accept a Zerk fitting cover? no grease fitting on top like the Berks have I believe it is an A/T nice set up no wear at all. I have pic's in my other post. " A/T lip or stuffer plate"

 

[jetboatperformance]

What about water lubed? I just pulled the bowl off a boat i just bought and it has no cover for a Zerk fitting? No threads to accept a Zerk fitting cover? no grease fitting on top like the Berks have I believe it is an A/T nice set up no wear at all. I have pic's in my other post. " A/T lip or stuffer plate"

Nothing wrong with water lubed (except in areas of glacier silt) , re the stuffer I personally would prefer an actual conical stuffer or turbine lip to a simple flat plate

Tom

 

[hotbo]

was your pump re-built in Hot-Springs?if so i wouldnt worry why it was switched over and maybe ask him what to run(Scott)

 

[hotbo]

Pennzoil marine grease in the thrust bearing and b owl bearing. This is a non synthetic roller bearing grease. Do not use lithium based chassis grease on your jet pump Turn the bowl seal around so lip faces forward and thrust seal so lip faces back. lets grease vent and keeps water out of both. Lip seal on bowl is good on new pumps but any cut from fish line or seal abrasion lets oil out of bowl. any lube is better than water lube, especially when running on the trailer. Jacuzzi has done it for 40 years and now A.T. and Aggressor do it too. Must not be all bad. If you remove the other plug when you grease it you will only pump grease out of the other hole and not force grease into the bearing as the plugs are on a common area. Another area of caution is that both bearings only need minimal attention as far as grease goes. I only grease mine a couple of times a year and only about 5 pumps in each bearing. Run my boats hard and have never had a bearing failure in 40 years. Oh,in case some of yopu dont know me my pops name is Jac Sea and I rebuilt this fellers pump.

sorry should have read this,welcome to the boards Scottsphss

i wouldnt know about you running anything very hardhand