Check Your U-Joints

Agreed, I did check at 1000 miles, and had to take off original paint before greasing.
Between u-joints and tranny I have to wonder what else Toyota failed to fill.

 

i'll be asking my dealer about this next spring at my first oil but; i've been skimming through this thread since i passed my TW admittance exam (C-), and still can't find anything attributing the 'low' or 'bone dry' u-joints (zerks) to any failures associated with.

do we really know if this is necessary before the first oil change and if yes, wouldn't imminent propulsion failure warrant a TSB --- like yesterday? i'm getting the feeling this is the u-joint version of the 'change your oil every 8k and not 15k' type of problem.

 

Nothing "imminent" , This is my third tacoma and the u joints fail somewhere north of 100k, sooner if you lift and don't get your driveline angles correct. I'm just hoping this extends the failure point farther out is all.

 

Personally I don't really get the question. Do you drive your car with half the engine oil in it? Of course the u-joints are not gonna have imminent failure, but they might wear out prematurely (I don't care for that). I can agree to some extent that "bone dry" is an exaggeration, at least mine had a minor amount of grease that I could visually see had been lubricating. But upon greasing it took several squeezes of just purging air before any grease came out. On my wife's 4Runner that I maintain the same way, grease comes out immediately at 10K intervals. Screw the stealership, get under there and see for yourself!

 

that's not a fair analogy. a fair one would be; does adding MORE oil protect your engine better than manufacturer specs?

this seems like a case of leaving it as it came, or add an extra layer of peace of mind.

i understand and agree with your general assessment but i don't think i was suggesting car maintenance ignorance.

 

My point was that u-joints are designed to hold an X amount of grease, and mine were "under-filled" from the factory. So yes adding enough to get to "full" does protect more. Just like you would want to fill 6 quarts of oil if that's what the engine calls for. U-joints lose grease over time so if you're "under-filled" to begin with, you're not going to have maximum protection over the stated service interval of 15K (or whatever it is). Good luck to you however you wish to address it!

 

fair enough.

 

I was also low in the rear diff(1 qt)and front diff(.5 qt).

 

Bless your heart.

 

Sometime a picture says a thousand words?

This is spicer ujoint btw, i guess crossing that creek won't hurt my truck any. It's just a lil creek!!

 

Dang

 

that's not because of a creek run. that's thousands of miles of use with a bad rubber seal. look at your needle bearings... you think greasing would have saved that?

 

Rust usually requires a key ingredient...... called water. To have it enter a spinning drive shaft.... you tell me Sherlock?

 

I had a u-joint explode in my old '97 XJ while doing 70mph down the freeway... my rear drive shaft went flying, and I had to limp home in 4-wheel drive...and I had lockers in the front axle, so that was fun!

I no longer have the pictures of the u-joint, but here is the drive shaft...



I miss my XJ...

 

Oh, I guess I should have greased my zerks

 

I filled mine with the grease they recommend in the manual, they needed grease in my OR TRD. I don't think this thread is BS but that surely is your opinion. I also work at a Big Truck factory and we grease all of ours.

 

i need to replace that boot you slid back some sticks and stuff shredded mine up from wheeling. any ideas where to get that from aside from the dealership who wants like $90 for it?

 

LOL. look at the pics. the U-joints say Spicer everywhere Spicer could put Spicer.

 

Just lubed mine, all 5 needed 8-9 pumps before the old grease started coming out (and there wasn't much old stuff before the new purged) and in some cases it sounded like air purged first. Thanks for the heads up on this dumb issue.

 

After reading some of this thread, I asked the dealer to grease mine. I also think the truck coasts better than before, thought I was losing my mind at first, until you said the same thing.