Grease points

Unless the joint is leaking, is there a reason to add grease to a ball joint?

 

I wonder and you deliver. Excellent.

 

I know I had them on my dodge which was a 12 but I can't remember if they were there before my lift or not. Because I had it lifted before 1k mikes haha!!

 

I def took off the shield on the rear one. I myself do not have patients either so that worked on that one. Got four out of five greased up but for some reason I cannot for the love of god get the damn gun fitting onto the front fwd one. I spent prolly 20-30 mins trying to get it on. There was one time I thought I had it connected and started pumping but as you guessed it, ended up with all the new grease cake in the center of the u joint. That's when I gave up on that one. IMHO it is a time saver and less of a hassle to take the two bolts off the heat shield to get to the rear one. I will try again in the next couple of days to do the front one again. I hardly ever use fwd anyway but wanted to keep everything lubed up. I do on occasion drive with the truck in 4H on long straight aways just to keep everything all functioning and lubricated in the fwd system. When reading the manual when I was bored I came across something that said if you do not use fwd often, at minimum drive the truck in 4H for alteast 10 miles per month. I don't do it all at once just every so often when I'm on a long straight road. I just wish they would have put the front zerks in the positions as the rears because those are s piece of cake to do!

 

Thanks for the help guys! I will eventually get the front one greased. Good thing you need to really do them at every oil change haha.

 

On another note I'm going to jack my own thread for a moment and ask you guys a question. I have searched and have found nothing. I just put rear billy 5100 on the other day and want to know where is a good medium to tighten the top nut? I know the specs say 20 lbs but there is really no way to gauge that. Once you start tightening the nut the resistance feels the same until you bottom the bushing out which I know is not right. As of right now I have about 1/4 or a little more of the threads showing on the top and stopped there because the bushing and washer are around about the same diameter if that makes sense. The bushing isn't smashed and the washer isn't just over hanging the bushing. Does this look about right as a good medium for the rear shock tightening or do I need to back off just a tad?

 

I checked my 2012 Taco and could not find a Lube Zerk for the Ball Joints. Did miss something. Thank You.

Billo

 

The ball joints don't have zerks. I've noticed that vehicles from the '90s and up use sealed BJs..... at least the ones I've seen.

 

My first car with sealed ball joints (No Zerks) was a '68 ford mustang that I bought new. By the way the ball joints were worn out in less than 50K.

 

Yea when I first asked the question I was concerned because my dodge had zerk fittings on the ball joints but I also had it life's within 1k miles so therefore I had aftermarket balljoints. I didn't think about that until someone brought it to my attention after I made the post. I'm guessing they started putting closed ball joints on newer vehicles a couple decades ago to eliminate preventive maintenance. Sense they know that most people buy their vehicles and just drive them and never pay attention to stuff like routine maintenance that should be performed by the owner like reading your u joints. The closed ball joints in theory are supposed to be designed to be a no maintenance long lasting part which in a lot of cases I have seen/heard that even with these set ups people still have them go out prematurely. me personally it's because there is no way to keep them lubed up because of the sealed design nowadays. That's just my thinking.

 

I am preparing to Lube the Driveshaft on my 2012 Taco, 4wd. I have read that there are a total of 5 Grease Fittings. Is that a total of 5 Zerks combined for both the 4wdr shaft and main shaft or just 5 for the 4x4 shaft. If so, how many fittings are there on the Main shaft? thank You

Billo

 

3 on main and 2 on front

 

I just did my zerks for the first time. I ended up putting 5 pumps into each one. That seemed like a lot to me. 2015 w/10000 miles.

 

i pumped until I started to see a little bit of the new stuff come out. it gets messy that way but puts clean grease in there. anyone ever use Mystik JT6 Hi-Temp grease? I just used it this time around and seems to be pretty good. I was up in the air between this stuff, Lucas Hi-Temp and Mobil 1 synthetic. to me the Mobil 1 seemed to be the lesser of the three. anyone with experience with Lucas Hi-temp green grease? I may give it a shot next time if it is better that the Mystik JT 6 stuff I just put in there.

 

yes while driving through puddles etc water does get into the ball joints and eventually washes out the grease. Grease them every oil change for the best results.

 

I grinded the tip of my grease gun a little bit to be able to grease the one in the front. Now the tip clip fine on the zerk and grease is getting well into the joint.

 

Do you do this with the needle attachment? also would you do the same with the CV joints?

 

No, I wouldn't use a needle to do that as it would damage the seals IMO

No, CV Joints do not suffer the same issues of washout.

 

^^i hope you don't think I mean stick a need the boot it self lol. I was saying use the attachment to get in between the boot. How would you lube the ball joint then?

 

I know what you meant and I wouldn't do it that way...

How would I lubricate a ball joint? If it has a zerk fitting I would use a grease gun, ours on the Tacoma are permanently lubricated and sealed, so I cannot lubricate them. When they are worn out I will replace them hopefully with ones with a grease fitting.