Check Your U-Joints

You can ask the service tech's to grease the drive line's. Most the time they are too lazy or too pressed for time. Just check before you leave. If they don't grease them jump their shit!!

 

thats certainly going to help

 

So a buddy of mine and I did some preventative maintenance on our Tacos today. I have a TRD Sport DCSB 6M/T (build date 06/16) and my friend has a TRD OR DCSB Auto (build date 03/16). The joints in front of the transfer case for both of our trucks were totally dry. They purged just air and eventually (5-6 pumps in) my royal purple grease. The 2nd zerk required removing the heat shield on both trucks and clocking the driveshaft by hand. The zerks behind the transfer were sealed with paint; I had a decent amount of air and some black assembly grease purge out. In my friend's case, pretty much nothing was purged on the 3 behind the transfer case. In both cases 4-6 pumps were needed for each zerk.

The difference is noticeable and I'm definitely glad I took the 30 minutes to do the job that dealers just lie about. I noticed the truck coasts a lot more freely now after the grease than before. Can't imagine what that was doing to the joints.

OA

 

I grease mine every time I go through water off road. Cheap, easy, upkeep.

 

Better late than never. Just greased mine @ 29.5k miles. Thanks OP for the post or I would've never known. Got the U-bolts tightened also. Now just gotta check the ATF fluid and I think I'm set.

 

if i have to grease these ujoints i am going to even more pissed....

 

Between the five fittings I used almost a full tube of grease. Definitely not what I was expecting in 2016 from Toyota out of Texas.

 

I only have 2 zerk fittings on my DCSB 4x4 Sport that I can find. Built in July 16 in Mexico. I greased the two front zerks. The front-most zerk still had the black paint and took 8 pumps. The second zerk on the front drive shaft did not have paint and had a small amount of grease on the fitting. That zerk took 4 pumps.
My rear drive shaft has no zerk fittings. Photos are attached (God willing) and I numbered each end cap at one of the u joints to show four different end caps without a fitting there. What am I doing wrong?

 

The zerks might not be on the endcaps? did you look all around the ujoint?

 

yep

 

Looks like your seals are non-purgable; lack of blue plastic.
Weird...

 

My DCLB OR 4X4 with a July build date just has two zerks on the front shaft.

 

My zerks weren't always on the end caps, see the pictures on the first page, they're on the side of some of the joints.

 

I don't always grease my Zerk fittings, but when I do, I do it with Dos XX...I always squirt grease responsibly and make sure my Zerk is clean after I am done...

 

I triple checked against your pictures, ran my hands over everything and only the front two joints have zerks. They must have changed parts.

 

Front two were on 90 degree zerk fittings - I got to both without removing that rear cover closest to the transfer case. The rear shaft had three zerk fittings, one on each cap. All of mine on my DCSB TRD OR 4x4 were low. Seems smoother after greasing. I had two zerk fittings which would not take any grease at first, so I used the tip of a wood screw to depress the ball in the center of the zerk a few times. They then both took ample amounts of grease.

 

Isn't that how you get a wood-pecker, by using a wood-screw...

 

Thanks OP for the heads up 8k on it and all needed 10 pumps from pistol grip grease gun till black assembly grease started to purge. Ft driveline had 90 degree zerks, had to tighten the front one a lil to get a good bite with the grease gun. Heads up better throw in a 3/8" wrench in your toolkit them zerks are American. Anyone know any other wrenches to carry?

 

Just purchased my 16 Tocoma off road long bed 7/28.
There is no zerks on either of my drive shafts!

 

Question: for all you driveline zerk greasing fanboys: Do you seriously believe the u-joints with no zerks installed on most of their trucks are assembled with more grease then the ones installed on 4wds with zerks for hard service maintenance convenience? You know that they just grease the bearings during assembly and do not pack the grease channels afterwards, right? That is where your grease pumps are going. Where are all the warranty failures for dry u-joints????? I love the stories of how much quieter and smoother the truck runs after greasing, that is some fun stuff! If the whole truck was built with the lackadaisical care you believe the u-jonts were delivered with we would all have to be way north of stupid to buy their products.