It's Good To Crawl Under The Taco

I bought myself a Lock 'n' Lube grease gun and got out this morning to lube up the u-joints. Cleaned them up around the seals first to get a good look at them, saw that the front joint on the front driveshaft had been replaced with what I assume is a Spicer because it has the blue seals. Got all five greased then took a look around.

I saw a broken clamp around the exhaust pipe under the driver's seat floorboard, couldn't see that it was for anything important so took it off. Then realized the heat shield above it was only being held on by one of the three nuts; the aluminum of the shield had let go around the bolts. I used a couple of larger diameter washers and some gasket material to get it held in place again. I'll inspect it next time I do an oil change/u-joint lube to see how it holds up.

Next I looked at the vent line connected to the transfer case actuator. Ooooh, no bueno, hadn't fallen off but I bet water would have gotten in there before too long.




For now, I snipped the end off and put the hose back on. But it's pretty tight, so I think I'll get an elbow fitting and put a couple of inches of new hose on there. The hose on the front actuator looks pretty new so all good there.

Then I found the front bumper had a couple of mounting points that weren't working so well. The main problem is a worn nylon expansion nut, plus a nylon push connector. May need a new nut but will see.

Then realized one of the fog lights was rattling around. Found someone had installed that black plastic retainer behind the star adjuster upside down. Got it out and turned around and reinstalled. Will borrow my neighbor's garage door to aim it "properly" later.

So yeah, another reminder that it's good to get a look at things yourself every now and again.

And I thank those here on TW who came before me and posted about their issues and solutions; the actuator vent hose issue is one I read about recently which is the only reason I had the presence of mind to check it while under there.

 

How do you like the Lock n Lube? I like the idea but it’s kinda pricey for what it is.

 

I’ve never used mine on the Tacoma, but it’s a must-have for my old tractor. Love it, worth the price. Only caveat is that it’s sometimes difficult to reach certain fittings due to it’s size.

 

I agree 100%! It's always a good idea to take a look at the underside of your Tacoma.

You probably saved yourself a bunch of aggravation and who knows how much money

 

It worked great on all five u-joint zerks. Even connected tightly to the one on the front driveshaft that had a bad angle to it. A bit of squeeze-out at first but as soon as there was pressure, that stopped.

I decided that since the baseline cost for a grease gun was $25 and the Lock 'n' Lube locking nozzle was $25 by itself, getting the whole shebang from them for $60 wasn't too bad. Got tired of looking at various grease guns that all seemed to have the same set of complaints about nozzles not coming off, leaking, etc. So based upon my initial experience, pretty happy with it.

 

Seeing how you have a 4x4 like me, the Lock n Lube is worth twice the price if I just used it for the hard-to-reach front 4x4 zerk IMHO.

 

I have a lock and lube , I haven’t used mine yet …. Very soon thou it will be in action , I hope I have as good results as the rest of you . I have to buy another grease gun thou , I ran over and squashed mine

 

Did it again. Decided to loosen up the serpentine belt and see what shape the idler and tension pulley bearings are in. The belt looks great so must have been replaced at some point not too long ago. No bearing whine that I've detected so I figured things would be in pretty good shape.

Hoo-boy, definitely not. One of them is pretty bad, two are not great, one seems fine. Got an order going for new OEM idlers and one of the Nachi bearings to fix up the tensioner. I'll hang on to the old ones and fix 'em up at some point; not going to be putting lotsa miles on the truck so the new ones should hold a very long time. I'll replace the belt and keep the current one as a spare as long as I'm into it.