Freeing up stiff landing gear

Searched all the forums on this, found nothing. My own trailers, super b, the landing gear on the pup is very stiff. Can crank in low gear only high out of the question. Trailers are less than 3 years old. Pup never gets unhooked, so the gear never gets used. Almost never. Have greased them more than adequately so it's not lack of grease. They are holland mark V. The extendable portion moves around easily in the outer legs, so it's not the sliding portion thats stiff. Holland put a tag on the leg indicating if this situation occurs, to pull the top cap off, and pour motor oil inside. Also to keep greased of course. So I tried this today. Not a lot of improvement, maybe I just need to spend a couple hours cranking up and down? The oil did start coming out around the gear case shafts. There was lots of grease in the top of the leg where the crown and pinion gear are. I am thinking the problem must be in the threaded portion and their theory with the oil is that it will make its way down there eventually. Has anybody had any luck with freeing up stiff gear like this? Any other tricks I could try? (I did only do the drivers side with the oil so far, ran out of time for the other side today). TIA

 

Thanks for that. I could see that might be a problem if it got over packed with grease where the gears are, if it was very cold, and it was heavy grease. Not cold here now, I use low temp grease, and not over packed with grease. If I am understanding the system correctly there is a threaded rod underneath the crown gear and I'm betting that's the part that gets dry, rusted, and makes it hard to turn. I appreciate the reply. Edit, searched further, found a couple you tube videos on the subject. Think I found the answer. The lower of the 2 grease fittings is for the jack screw, which is what usually seizes up. You can pull this fitting and either squirt penetrating oil, or basic engine oil, depending on how bad seized. Let sit overnight, run legs up and down, repeat as needed til free, then grease liberally. The other trick I had forgotten about, funny how age and memory play with each other, is to pull the bolt on the cross shaft to tell which leg or both, are the tight ones. I remember now, on an earlier set of trailers, I acutally had a quick linch pin in there rather than a bolt so if I was unhooking on uneven ground I could run one leg up or down a bit as needed, so they were contacting the pads at the same time, saved looking for small spacer blocks.

 

Yes. I use low temp/arctic grease. Same with brake slacks and cams. That's another place you don't want heavy grease.