Grease your zerks!!!!

For those of you that don't, START.

35k on the truck and i decided it would be a good time to grease everything.

Jacked it up and changed the oil.

The first 2 zerks on the front driveshaft were pretty decent. The rear ones however seemed completely empty. Took 5-6 pumps before grease was comming out the sides.

Front ones only took 2 or 3.

Just for your information....GREASE GREASE GREASE

 

No problems if you just follow the maintenance schedules.

 

Did my front 2 just a few minutes ago with Mobil type 2 grease. Cant seem to find any on the rear. Thanks for the heads up.

 

I thought everything was sealed nowadays...

 

The 4x4's rear and front drive shafts have zerks fittings on the u-joints, for a total of 5 zerks. The prerunners have none. At least that's how I understand it.

 

My 2wd 4cyl access cab has no zerks anywhere. Everything is sealed. Well maybe not the tie rod ends, I will check those. But I know the u-joints and ball joints are sealed on my 2wd. "Lube for life"? More like "lube until failure."

 

...what's a "zerk"

 

The ones on the rear of mine just happened to be pointed straight up. Im sure if i would have jacked the rear end up I could have rotated them down. But they werent that hard to get to. I think there were 3. One next to the tranny. One in the middle. It had a skid plate covering it and then one next to the rear diff.

 

Yeah pretty much lubed until failure. I understand that the sealed ones can last 50-100K miles or so.

It is a grease fitting or grease nipple. It is a lubrication fitting used in mechanical systems to add grease with a grease gun. The fitting is permanently installed by a threaded connection leaving a nipple connection the grease gun attaches to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_fitting


It is the green thing in the photo above.



Clean the zerk. Then hook up your grease gun and pump some grease in.

 

I had my stealership grease those zerk fittings and tighten up the U joint flange on my last oil change, I don't think it was done at 35K... glad I had it done I think it was dry.

 

The rear u joint fittings are on one of the 4 endcaps. You may have to rotate the driveshaft to see them. The front fittings are on the spiders themselves.

 

I found the one on the rear. It was hiding from me

 

...and here I thought you boys called them....NIPPLES!!

Grease your nipples!!!

 

I love greasy nipples.......

 

Really nice clear pics. Virgin grease monkeys should appreciate.

 

I do

Oh wait those nipples....

 

So what issues might your truck exhibit if you were to never grease your nipples, hehe??

 

Grinding, eventually u-joint failure which usually results in vibes, and potentially driveshaft separation (read: fucking breaks apart) if the u-joint goes unnoticed and continues to get used for a prolonged period.

Grease your zerks people. The reg maint schedule only calls for it every 30k for chrissakes. I do mine every other oil change.

 

I have that exact same gun and i never knew that was adjustable...

Learn something new every day.

 

I'm not zerkin around, they will always be nipples...........