Grease Up for Winter

How do you guys grease up the truck for winter? & What kinds of grease do you use for each? I did a search, but didn't find much on the forms. I'm just looking for advice on stuff that should be lubed 2x a year or so. Just trying to avoid rust / keep things smooth. Especially since I took the truck in some 3ft water a few times this past month.

I found one article online showing a few pictures of door lube points on a small car:
http://www.automedia.com/Greasing_Parts/ccr20050601gg/1

Last year I used some basic lithium grease on the tail gate, UCA, tie rods, leaf springs, door hinges, throttle cable, and parking brake. Was that right? or what else should be done? I have access to a shop lift if needed.

Thanks!

 

You should definitley do your drive shaft aswell.

 

Got a picture? I'm still an amateur with all the car part names. & idk what parts to grease, because all I see is a solid metal tube and a few bolts that don't look like they slide.

 

here is a little walkthrough with pics of where you grease the driveshaft. I'll be doing mine this weekend, hopefully.

 

Sweet! I can see them. Thanks alot. Do you think it's ok to use Penzoil 707L (http://www.pennzoil.com/documents/Premium Wheel Bearing 707L.pdf) wheel bearing grease? I figure it should be ok. I've used it on tons of stuff from electric fans to door hinges to hose valves. It's pretty slippery. Doesn't work amazingly well in high shear impact applications though (think of a misaligned door swinging into the frame).

 

I have not done it myself so hopefully someone that has chimes in on this. But I think the biggest thing is make sure it it a waterproof grease. I think Toyota recommends a certain type of grease for different parts of the drive shaft but also read somewhere people just use the same all across the truck, so who knows.

 

Just greased my driveshaft a cpl wks ago, used Lucas Red n Tacky #2 on all the zerks, time will tell if that was the right thing to do... feels fine to me

 

is there anyway to get most of the old grease out & put new grease in? Because I know if you pump too much in you can rupture the parts from pressure. But how do you get the worn grease out?

edit:
& I'm guessing most of the problems come from people just not using grease. I doubt the specific properties of any grease effect too much. Most of them are pretty similar & this isn't a high temp or other extreme condition.

 

How do you know if it's fine? Is it supposed to "clunk" a little bit when shifting? Or is something causing that?

 

by "fine" I meant that nothing felt wrong/different/worse. It was the first time I'v done it, I just followed the advise of others. I didn't want to buy 2 different grease guns/grease etc.

Shifts nice and smooth and helped w/ my axle wrap so I see it as a good thing

EDIT: just noticed u are manual and I'm auto, so can't comment on the "clunk"

 

How long did it take you to grease all the fittings? And were you up on blocks? I have a window of opportunity on Sunday to do it. I want to get that done and my spark plugs changed before snow touches down.

 

my truck is sitting on 33's so i can get under it without blocks very easily. It only takes a few minutes, just get under there (with it in gear/park and ebrake on) and grease the fittings you are able to see on the driveshaft (both ends) then move the truck up a few inches to spin the drive shaft and get back under and grease the other ones. It may take a few trys of moving the truck untill you get them in the right location, could be easier to just jack up the rear end and put it in neutral w/out the parking brake and just spin it but i chose not to.

 

Do the spark plugs first. Greasing isn't hard from what I've seen/done. I'm able to squat/kneel under my truck & reach most of the suspension components. It's usually easier to just lay down to do the ebrake though. I just didn't lie down last time cause it had just rained. I'm 6'1", but I am 22 years old... so i'd recomend lying down. Squatting with a bent head kind of sucks.

Anyways, to do the wheel bearings and drive shaft I think I'm gonna lift my truck. I've got access to one so why not stand upright and grease everything in one go. Let me know if you are in Troy, NY. I can get you a car lift for like $10 or maybe even free.

Buying a grease gun tomorrow (i've been using a tub of grease for a long time). Anyone know if you can scoop grease from a tub into the grease gun without getting a canister?

 

I just bought a new gun because I lost my old one apparently. You can suck grease into the gun from a big tub of grease on most I believe. I wouldn't recommend scooping it in because you will get air bubbles in it. I'm went with Red n Tacky #2 because that is the only thing that looked familiar from recommendations on here. I did see some moly lithium but I didn't want to buy two different size guns, because the cartridges were the small ones.

 

how bad are air bubbles? because my bulk grease isn't that deep. It's only a 1lb or 1.5lb tub.

 

You just have to be sure to bleed it out of the gun if you get any in there. It should have a valve on the top to bleed it. As far as getting air where the grease is supposed to go, I have no idea. I would think that is a no-no on certain applications like your bearings or other places the grease is not supposed to escape.

 

Just finished doing all my zerks. I just made some ramps out of 2x10's I had laying around and it was super simple. Took it for a test run and it seemed to help with axle wrap a bit.

 

Wash out as much old grease as you can, I use Asmoil Waterproof Greas, pretty much all year round but it's def. a good thing to use in winter as everything is always wet.

 

yah how do you wash it out? or pump it out? For the zerks, I've been told either:

• pump until you see grease start to come out
• pump until fresh grease comes out
• pump until you feel some resistance
• just give about 3 pumps and call it a day

I'm guessing the drive shaft is different than the UCA's. Because too much grease in the UCA would rupture it.

 

I found this today. I think it's what I'm going to follow. I'll just post it so anyone searching can see.


http://www.irv2.com/forums/f26/zerk-fitting-grease-amounts-46127.html