Has anyone ever drilled out your rear carrier and added an aftermarket zerk fitting?

 

I did that to my buddy's Lakota. We had to replace the axle bearings, so we popped out the "so called" seals on the new bearings(so the grease can pass thru them)and put new outer seals in. We drilled and tapped the housing 1/8" pipe thread to match the zerks that I have. Works good, but becareful about pumping too much grease in. A grease gun can exert 1500 psi of pressure. We did that and it locked up the axle. We took the zerk back out to relieve the pressure and all's well now.
Then,I thought about putting the outer seals in backwards so the grease can escape easier to prevent that from happening again. With the seals in backwards it should also keep water out better too.

 

I did this to a 300ex and went from having to replace the bearings 3 times a year, to 1 time a year.

 

The first thing to do is clean your housing very well or you will shove rust into those new bearings put in two zerks one where you can get to it and one on top (vent) drill a hole in it when grease comes out wala full to the top. Just a thought if oil seals would work better reversed wouldn't 4 or 5 OEMS be doing this already? bthw If tou have a small yama atv and can't add oil to shaft drive this is a must!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oil seals only seal in one direction. If there isn't any grease fittings, you need to keep the grease in. If you can grease the housing,then keeping the grease in isn't the prime concern, keeping water out is. You could pump the housing full and push out any water that may have got in, assuming you could push the excessive grease out somewhere. The best place is the ends of the housing, because you would be pushing new grease thru the bearings and the ends of the housing are the most likely spot that water would enter.