Check Your U-Joints

About time to get back under there and check again. Thanks for the posts.

 

Found zero zerk fittings on front or rear, 2017 OR purchased Sept. 2016.

Son of a bitch! I wouldn't have bought the gun/grease!

Anyone know why there aren't any fittings at all?

4x4 2017 OR, MFG 08/2016 in US

 

Look closer on the front drive shaft.... there are 2 of them. They are tucked into the "crotch" of the joint....!!

 

I plan on looking again, me and a buddy looked up/down/inside/outside and didn't see nary a one!

 

I believe Toyota did away with grease-able u-joints after 2016

 

Maybe late 2017? My June 2017 build has them on the front shaft only.

 

June-July 2016

 

I believe that was when they got rid of the rear 3 zerks, but the front should still have 2 more..??

If it's a 4x4..

 

I thought it should have had the 2 at least in the front! It its an OR 4x4, Looks like my pops will be putting me and the gun to work on his 02' lol

 

Check out post #1 on this thread.... you'll see how those front 2 zerks are well hidden in the crotch of the joint...!!

Good luck..."Zerk hunting"..... PS.. The front one is the hardest to get a gun on...there is a little "cut-out" in the joint and if you turn the joint to 7 o'clock, you should be able to get on it.....(that's driver's side...looking from the rear).

I had to grind my tip a bit to get in there.... (my tip was just too big)...!!

 

2018 SR5 DCLB with 1,050 miles. Below is what I found:

The one closest to the engine took 4 full pumps before I saw some assembly grease. By pump 8 I could see some of my new grease. I did 10 pumps total before my grease came out of every spot.

The other u-joint took almost 4 full pumps before I saw some assembly grease. By pump 7 I could see some of my grease. I did 9 pumps total before my grease came out of every spot.

 

So I went to walmart and bought red tacky grease but I had trouble getting the coupler on my gun to attach to the zerk. I am unsure if the zerks are a different size (larger) than my gun's coupler or if the angle is giving me the trouble.

 

The front Zerks are at a weird angle, I ended up grinding some material off of my grease gun fitting and it goes on and off much easier.

 

Those 2 fittings are there on the front shaft, they are just hiding from you.

 

Just pop the little shield off for the front u joint, spin it by hand untill it's pointing down and grease it up. Personally I never pump more than 3 times, too much grease can blow out the seals, cause excessive heat build up and makes a mess. I just pump untill I see the seals slightly puff up. Usually about 3 pumps or less.

 

I like to remove that little metal shield also to get in there easier.

 

Nice video, only thing is it's a little misleading because that u joint is huge and completely dry. And it gives the impression of you have to pump that much grease. On a greased u joint of our trucks size I'd say 3 pumps worth of grease is more than you think. Thanks though it is a great vid. Now if only there was one showing the sealed lifetime units there using now. I've changed some on Ford's before and the used a nylon collar where the seals are and we would torch em to get them hot so the nylon melted and put in regular style greasable joints. My experience the lifetime sealed u joints lasted between 45,000 to 55,000 miles but those were on fords.YMMV

 

You guys were all correct, found the lil' bastards hiding in the crotch of the u-joints!

 

Just a tip for those that are new to these things, the shaft/ujoints can be rotated in order to facilitate accessing the zerk fitting. Once I figured this out I was able to get the coupler to attach and grease them up. I had to purge air on both before the dirty grease came out. There was definitely grease in there but neither was full. This was two days after my 15K service that the dealership was supposed to grease these fittings per the standard maintenance program, do not trust the dealer to do this for you.

 

Just did mine today, I was a bit surprised that there were no Zerks on the slip joints. At any rate, it was easy to access all the Zerks that were present. The front shaft U joints purged out a strange, thin red and somewhat runny grease, while the grease in the rear shaft U joints was black lithium grease as I would have expected. Not sure if anyone else has purged out that red runny stuff from the front shafts.

Of course, got inspired to do both of my Jeeps, much harder tasks w double cardan shafts all around, and had to remove them all to be able to grease adequately. It was a grease fest here in the driveway today. The Tacoma was way way easier to do, like a 20 minute task which included "flossing" around the cups to make sure purged grease didn't go flinging everywhere when I drove and then stink on the hot exhaust pipe or cat.