At the dealership right now...

So I gave the front driveshaft u joints some grease this morning. Got to the one at the front, added some grease. Then the grease gun went loose and grease poured out. The zerk broke in two! Half of it stayed in the u joint and half in the grease gun!

Called the dealership who agreed to take a look if I brought it in. Originally the plan was to replace the fitting, but they discovered that it was pressed in and the whole u joint has to be replaced.

Warranty will cover the work, which is awesome. Never heard of this problem with grease zerks breaking before...

Having the 4x4 fluids changed while I'm here, and have to bring the truck back later this week for the new u joint replacement.

 

Sorry to hear that but thanks for the heads up. I'd never heard of a pressed in non-replaceable zerk fitting until this.

 

Good to know .

 

That is such a poor design. I thought for sure the fittings would be threaded.

 

I agree, I tried a wrench and vise grips to spin that sucker out, to no avail. Turns out the reason it wouldn't budge was because it was pressed in.

I'm glad I'm getting a new u joint anyway. Driving around with an open wound like that could lend itself to problems with water entry etc. This will give me piece of mind.

FWIW, I think the zerks on the rear drive shaft u joints are threaded.

 

Strange. Never seen one that wasn't threaded in and replaceable.

 

More stupid cheapout senseless money saving non-user serviceable factory dogshit FTL!

 

I hope the replacement u joint has a zerk... be it pressed it or threaded. Not being able to grease it would suck immensely for a 4x4 vehicle.

 

Unfortunately it only saves the manufacturer money Warranty FTW !

 

Only if there is enough material left in the hole to do so...

 

Not necessarily...it depends on what the OD of the fitting is that was pressed in.

 

hey bigmooze can you grab part number for u-joint they are replacing... ?

 

Yes sir, I'll see what I can find out.

FWIW, I found a post on another forum and one owner found it to be a 1310 style u-joint. But I'm not sure what the different types are.

I'll post what I find out.

 

OK, so I picked the truck up this afternoon.

They replaced the front driveshaft, part number 37140-04050.

It blows my mind that they would do that instead of replacing the U-joint, but whatever. Warranty covered the part and all labour costs.

 

It means that either Toyota wants the shaft back to examine on the failure, or the broke something else while pressing a new u-joint in or perhaps Toyota doesn't trust the dealership guys to change ujoings without mucking up the shaft or yokes.

Howard

 

Well when the dealership made my appointment for the repair work, I got an e-mail saying it had been made.

The e-mail said that the appointment was to replace the drive shaft, not just the u-joint. I thought nothing of it. The repair appointment was made on Monday, so they had plans to replace the drive shaft all along.

Maybe you're right, Toyota do want to see the failure. I hope so: they can't improve on a potential problem with suppliers if they don't even look into it.

 

are there zerks on the factory U-joints? i could look, but i'm feeling lazy...

 

On the 4WD models, yes. I can't speak to the pre-runners.

And my new front drive shaft does have zerks.