Check Your U-Joints

Not saying other grease is no good. Only trying to share years of experience to help. Keep grease in is more important than brand. Some grease stays in longer than others.

 

Checked it an hour ago. Looked bone dry. Each fitting took about ten pumps.

 

That is really dry. Did any rust come out?

 

I greased mine at 800 miles. They each took about 37 pumps. But then I realized my grease gun was empty

 

I always run Lucas/comparable brand of the thick green water proof grease, rated for bearing use.

Guess I'll follow suit and get some of that fancy japanese vehicle spec'd stuff.

 

We use the cheapest shit money can buy at work. I used mystik jt6 calcium sultanate in mine

 

Just what I put it. Zerks were still coated with paint, but there had to be assembly grease, at a minimum.

 

Assembly grease is thin and used only to stop rust in package.

 

It's fry oil

 

Either way, I only saw the blue grease in my gun pushing out after a few pumps.

BTW, what exactly is used in manufacture of the u joints. I figured they had some wd-40 ish to keep rust under control, but what do they initially pack them with? I'd suspect it's a very small amount of something.

 

It is just a thin tan colored grease.

 

Left over taco fry grease

 

If there's absolutely no grease, I doubt a u joint would make it very far before coming apart. Too much heat build up in an enclosed metal piece.

 

I had 4 out of 5 zerks that still had factory paint on them. I did not count the number of pumps I just pumped until all the factory black crap came out and I started to see red from the new stuff.

I have 2700 miles on my truck. Glad I did this now instead of later.

 

Well I just finished greasing all my zerks, like the OP said all of them still were coated in paint. All of them took about 8-10 pumps to purge.

The first two up front were the only ones that had grease (assuming from pre-assembly) in them, reddish in color on the bearings opposite from one another and yellowish in color on the other two bearings opposite from each other.
As for the rear three ujoints, they had no grease whatsoever and the only grease to come out was what I was putting in.

This to me is completely insane, how does Toyota install a bunch of ujoints with no lubrication. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years a lot of 3rd gens are having their ujoints replaced.

 

THis...^^^

 

The front 2 had some grease in them. Looked like more than just assembly grease. The zerks didn't appear to have paint and some cups were purged.

The rear 3 didn't appear to have more than assembly grease. The zerks looked untouched, compete with black paint. No evidence of any cups being purged.

 

???

 

Just did mine tonight, all 5 took on average 6 pumps or so. All of them also purged some black grease. This is on a truck I bought fresh off the carrier in December.

By the way, the zerk that's under the shield is a bit of a pain. I eventually got it purged, but it made a mess as the angle was pretty tough for the thick nozzle on the Lincoln grease gun.

 

I took care of mine today and had the same results as everybody else. No grease. I had a Chevy truck and it was the same way, this should be part of the dealer prep, but that will never happen.