Hi, New member here. Been lurking awhile. Today I went to do an oil change and grease job on my 2012 500 HO. First time doing it on this machine I bought new last year. I bought a new grease gun from autozone. That dang thing would not get unstuck from the zerk fittings. Took everything i had to get it off. On my rear lower arm I pulled the zerk right out of the arm. Stripped it. On an upper arm on the rear I squirted 1 squirt in and the zerk came out. also stripped. That musta been from the factory. Now what do I do? Try and thread a new one in and hope for the best? What size are they? Thankful for any help. Hope I didnt screw up the arms.......grrrrrrrrr.

 

It's probably the grease gun fitting. I've done that at home with some of the good old Chinese grease guns that would lock on the fittings. Did the same thing on my riding mower fittings. Autozone,Napa,Tractor Supply has packages of them on the racks. Just take one you can salvage and match them up as there are a couple different sizes and lightly thread back in.Standard grease zerks,not metric for the most part on Polaris machines,BUT newer models can be metric. Most times you shouldn't need retap the hole.To save a lot of future problems you can also get a needle point grease gun adapter while there and not worry about doing it again OR lightly taking a Dremel tool to the inside of the grease gun fitting like I did to keep it from sticking again.

 

I though the new Sportsmans had no grease fittings any longer.

Any ways I would find out its thread size and drill and tap it out to the next size larger.
METRIC GREASE FITTINGS | METRIC ZERK FITTINGS | METRIC GREASE FITTINGS
If its a 5mm fitting tap it out to 6mm or 7mm and buy another fitting.

Use a bottoming tap (Top in pic)

 

Thanks so much for your reply. I was able to get a new zerk on the one I pulled out. It seems to have grabed the threads. Not so much on the one that popped off with one squirt. I think that one was done at the factory. It slightly threads in but wont seat . Im pretty sure i could just pull it out by hand. Now what? Can I get away tapping a new hole? What about metal shaving getting down in there? Im not the best mechanic, dont know if i can tear out and replace an arm myself. Finally get a day off and now cant go riding sigh...... Can I temporaraly seal it off and make it operational for short term? This sucks, a simple lube and oil change (which I havent got to yet) and this happens.

 

If you need to go riding right away, I would just clean and cover the zerk hole with silicon so no water or dirt gets inside. Fixs it when you have more time.


The drill and tap will not cause enough metal filings to hurt anything. Just clean the hole out best you can.

 

Most of the older ones are 1/8" 28 pitch on the fittings and were tapered. They will pull out easy or break,but with the taped fit it will usually retap it's own threads. Just kinda use this as a guide,but try a new fitting before you start tapping different sizes. Zerk Fittings / Grease Fittings

 

Like OPT says the chinese couplers are a gamble. I work on trucks and can only use napa couplers due to size. Some are loose right away some tight. Best advice I can give is "break it in". By that I mean push it on and off a zerk before you get serious with it on your machine. That way you can get a feel for it being a dud or not. You could try teflon tape on the threads of a replacement zerk to see if it would hold in there too.

 

Teflon tape is a good idea. I think that would at least snug them in and seal out the elements. Dont know it would hold to grease em that way but it would allow me to use the machine until I figure out what to do. Thanks for the idea. Did the oil change after all but skipped cleaning the screen/priming pump step this time. Just drained oil tank, crank case, and new filter. Did not wanna press my luck today. Will do the screen next time since I have not done it yet. Thanks again guys.