U-Joint Seal, Broke?

I was inspecting my u-joints this weekend in prep for a few things, like greasing joints as well as the slip yoke.

I was looking to make sure I identified where all the zerks were, when I found this (see attached).

The red arrow points to the robber (?) seal next to one of the zerks. This is the one just behind the transfer case.

The seal is lose, and by that I mean i can spin it around and even pry it away slightly. Is this normal? I tried spinning/moving the other seals, but none moves except this one.

 

probably a casualty of driveline vibes. how many miles / what year? lift?

 

That's just a dust seal. With it being that loose though, your u-joint will wear out quicker unless you increase your greasing schedule. That being said, I have about 100k miles on my 2007 and all mine are still in good shape.

 

116k on mine and the "boots" are loose or cracked. I just try to grease them more often. I'm looking at replacing them all as well as the Carrier Bearing.

 

Make sure you're sitting down when you look up prices for OEM replacement stuff. OEM u-joints are $50/ea and the OEM CB is $150 Just so you know, Toyota used Spicer stuff for the drive shaft so you could likely cross reference the Toyota part to a standard Spicer part for the u-joints and save some money. Don't use MOOG, their QC has issues and their u-joints don't fit well or don't fit at all.

 

I broke one also... http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/266015-front-driveshaft-issue-after-greasing.html The seals are plastic rings with 2 very small holes for excess grease to escape. They break easily if the grease is pumped too fast. To keep water/dirt from getting into the area where the seal was and still allow excess grease to escape when greasing i repaired it with emergecy tape (the tape sticks to itself and is extremely strong.) The tape pretty much made a new O-ring seal. I plan on getting a new u-joint down the road but with this fix and a greasing schedule of every 5,000 miles i'm not worried. http://www.rescuetape.com/

 

It's a 2006 TRD Double Cab, 85K, no lift or mods to the suspension other than Air Lift (ai suspension) installed this past summer for a towing a new pop-up. Before that, no real heavy lifting.

Anyway... I'm ashamed to say I've been ignorant and have not done this maintenance before, ever.

I don't feel any vibrations. It was my slip yoke binding that led me to also looking at my u-joints and realized this was an easy maintenance I should have been doing this whole time.

Thanks for this tips.

Question: What are symptoms of needing new u-joints? Is it vibrations?

 

If your u-joints are really bad, you'll hear a 'clunk' when shifting from reverse to drive. Get under the truck, grab the drive shaft on either side of the u-joint and see if there is any play across the joint. The joint should not have any play at all, it should be nice and tight. If there's play, you need new u-joints. They can cause vibrations also but the Tacoma seems to have a lot of vibration issues so that's not a dead giveaway to needing new u-joints.