Easy Maintenance to do- Grease drive shaft U-Joints using the 5 Zerks on a 2nd Gen 2014 TRD OR DCSB

Not hard to take your hand and grab each u joint and feel for the zerks.

FYI first gens had a center double cardian joint which had zerks in different spots, but like stated just get under and LOOK!

 

There should be one on every joint. I just did this two weeks ago on a 95 reg cab but I can't remember for sure. I would say 3 on the rear and 2 on the front.

 

Few pics... (edit: forgot to mention, this off of a 2012 4x4 double cab.)


Here is the front of the drive shaft, top of the picture is towards the engine/front end. I was able to spin the shaft by hand to find this little guy, had to clean him good to get a view on him.


The rear most grease fitting on the front drive shaft is hiding under this little cover. Remove the two bolts seen here. Note again: top of the picture goes towards the engine bay/front end.

Same deal here, spin the shaft until you can see the grease fitting. Clean it and fill 'er up.

 

For folks having a hard time getting their grease gun on the fittings, you can use a "needle tip" on regular zerk fittings also (they are made for the low profile dished ones but work on standard ones also). Makes tight fits easier to get to.

 

What is the type of grease used from the factory? I dont want to use anything thats not compatible

 

Any lithium based NLGI #2 grease will be compatible. In general, grease with "moly" is not recommended for u-joints but it's not going to cause immediate harm if you do use it.

 

perfect, thanks, thats what i have in the grease gun currently

 

Thanks for the instructions and photos. I just did this half an hour ago on my 2014 DCLB 4x4. It took about 30 minutes with me taking my time and wiping things down before and after pumping in the grease. As others mentioned the two front Zerks were a bit more difficult to get to compared to the rear. I'm glad someone mentioned removing the heat shield . . . I didn't think there was any way to get to that fitting where the front drive shaft meets the transfer case, with the shield in place, so it was nice knowing others have had to remove it as well. I also discovered one of the seals on the transfer case is leaking . . . At least it failed while under warranty.

~ Steve

 

Thanks for this tip, no pun intended. I tried once to grease my fittings and ended up having to use channel locks to yank the *##! coupler off of the fitting. Had the same problem when trying to grease the axle on a trailer.

 

I've been doing my own servicing for the last 60,000 miles. That includes oil changes, front and rear diff and transfer case fluid changes, spark plugs etc. the truck now has 83,000 miles on the clock.

I'm embarrassed to say that in that entire time I have totally neglected lubing the truck, completely forgot....will do it this week. Anyone think I may have problems because of that length of time between?

 

OP, a "how to" tutorial video clip and upload it on youtube would be much appreciated.

 

Good video tutorials take a lot of time and editing. They are not easy to make. Maybe next time I do the ujoint maintenance.

 

I thought the OP nailed it with excellent instructions. That, combined with the pictures in post #23 should be plenty of instruction. If not I would take it somewhere to get it done if I were you...good luck.

 

Does everyone keep pumping until they see clean grease coming out of the seals? If so, do you do this on all 5 zerks? If not on all 5, which ones don't you and why?

I only pumped until I saw the old grease start to come out. Should I pump some more in the joints?

Just did my 30K (and first time lubing the drive shaft). First zerk took about 3 pumps, next took about 6, the back three each took about 8+ pumps. Judging by how many pumps everyone else is saying theirs took, not too confident about how well lubed my truck's joints were coming out of the factory. Like some others are doing, I now will definitely by greasing mine with every oil change.

Thanks for all replies/advice!

 

I pumped until I saw the new grease come out. Then stopped. I would think , environments and use will change the amount of grease applicable to each joint.

 

Just ordered a grease gun to do this and a few things on my project car. I highly doubt this truck has seen any maintenance on the greasing side of things...

 

going out to do them now thanks to this thread.

 

wow, probably should have done them sooner, they took 6-8 squirts each. And maybe it's in my head but it feels like she's rolling a little easier. I'll have to check the mileage at the next fill up!

 

U-joints are designed to be purged of old grease when you pump them up with new grease, so you want to keep pumping until you see new grease come out of the seals. I used Valvoline Crimson Grease because it's easy to see when the new grease starts coming out of the u-joint seals.

 

So I just went out and bought a grease gun and some Mobil 1 Synthetic grease to knock this out. Everything was looking good, but when I had the gun on the zerk and was pumping the grease in, after maybe 5-6 pumps, the new grease was just oozing out of the connection. No old grease was coming out from anywhere. Is this normal? I thought the old crap got pushed out.