Check Your U-Joints

Have you considered that maybe the transmission is low on fluid..?? My '06 was low and did the "thing" at the lights...ie: downshift rough..?? I checked at it was 1 1/4 liters LOW from the factory.... It fixed the issue for me.. Many others had low trannies also....

I bet the 3rd gens are low also....!!

 

They supposedly checked my fluid the other day and it was fine. will bring this back up with them later.

 

You must steadily pump into zerk until squirting.

 

So us 2wd owners will just have to run our trucks until the u-joints squeal I guess? That is unless we want to do something goofy like replace ours before they go bad with some that have zerks. My son's 2wd, 2nd gen went 95,000 miles before we replaced his first one.

 

This or check your owners manual!

 

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You're late. We're talking about what grease to put in a sticky booted slip joint should it ever require service.
There are 3 to choose from; lithium (Spicer spec), lithium w/moly(Toyota spec), or Ford XG-8(teflon).
http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/ptfe...-ford-motorcraft-xg-8-ml1167-31508-42027.html

I'm thinking the Teflon lube is better on nylon coated splines.

 

Holy shit!! now I know what was wrong with my 4runner.... 3 years later. Fuck it, its not mine anymore.

 

This thread got me paranoid so I greased all the u joints. Only took 2-3 pumps for me. Either OP's grease gun is at fault or the assembly line is iffy. Also the grease coming out the u joints was black, so is the oem grease Molly based? As far as I know Molly greases are black

 

My grease gun is fine.
Besides, you can't compare just your experience vs mine.
Your only about the second or third person that's been a 2-pump chump.
Everyone else is on par with my experience.
So, I'm going to go with iffy assembly line if those are the choices.

The lithium complex I used was black...
Lithium complex, lithium w/ moly and moly-base comes in all kinds of colors.
Spicer ships u-joints with their calcium sulfonate grease to protect the needle bearings during shipping/storage; it's green.
If Toyota adheres to their spec, they should be using lithium complex in the U-joints, during and after assembly. I'm of the mind they are not being lubed/purged after assembly at the least.
Lithium w/ moly should be used in double cardan and slip yokes/joints, per Toyota.
It's becoming apparent though, there are no double cardan or serviecable slip joints on the '16s

How many miles do you have and what did your zerks look like?

 

I still say DELO ep2. After we switched to it our fleet failures went way down.

 

3.5k on the taco. Zerks seemed to have been painted over. Lol

 

If your zerks were untouched, they were never properly lubed/purged from the factory.
Toyotacare doesn't cover that until 15,000 miles.

 

Tin cover I'm pretty sure used 12mm bolts on front drive shaft. If you spin the shaft by hand and point the zerk straight toward the passenger side, found its easiest to reach that fitting from there if you're laying on the ground underneath it

 

Put it on a rack and you can just spin both shafts in neutral

 

Yea, but I'm going to guess that not everyone has a rack in their garage or driveway

 

Sucks for them

 

You're my hero

 

If you knew how often I heard that

 

Lucky...
Which skid is that?

 

In 2H the front shaft spins sitting on the ground. I jack my rear from under the pumpkin and place on jackstands to do the rear shaft. Don't forget to release the parking brake and place truck in neutral after it's on the jackstands. I've done the reposition truck until the angle is right route, but it's quicker to just put it on jackstands.