Never greased anything

Hi TW'ers.

I've owned my 2009 PreRunner 2wd since new and it currently has 134,000 miles on it. I've changed the oil (Mobile synthetic) and filter every 5k miles, kept up with the other fluids (diff, coolant, etc). I even put new pads and discs on it a few years ago and just changed my serpentine belt and spark plugs about 10k miles ago.

The only thing that I've NEVER done is put any grease on it. Anywhere. As in: I don't even own a grease gun and, embarrassingly, wouldn't know a zerk from a hole in the frame.

Now that you're all done laughing, can anyone tell me:

#1. Am I screwed?
#2. How important is greasing the various parts? Which parts is it especially important to grease?
#3 How hard is it to do?

The truck is riding and running really well with no indication or squeaks or anything. Just checking to see what I should do, how soon, and how much I should freak out.

 

I would definitely grease the u joints if you can. 20 dollar Amazon gun and some grease. There’s plenty of YouTube videos

 

Was crawling around under there and found six zerks i didn't know existed. Looked in manual. Whoops. 60k pumped them full. All seems fine

 

Bought my 1st gen new in late 2001.
It's never been greased......anywhere.

 

No I don’t think your screwed , just get a grease gun with some of your favorite grease , mine is Mobil 1 synthetic and crawl under and do it . There is a how to somewhere here , it’s pretty easy and can’t really be fucked up . I usually pump the gun on each zerk fitting until I just start to see a glimpse of fresh grease come out of the u joint (you can also hear it squishing out kinda) the hardest part is probably keeping the coupler of the grease gun on the fitting and it doesn’t pump out around the sides .

 

Do Prerunners have zerks? Regular 2 whl drives do not.

 

I think you might have 3 maybe , not the 5 that a 4wd truck has

 

I’m not 100% sure , let’s see what others chime in

 

I found 6 on a 4x4. Funny the manual don't tell you how many there are! i looked pretty close though think I got them all

 

I use one of these. Makes connecting to the zerks way easier.

 

I don’t think prerunner have zerks. I know I have owned my truck since new I’m 2010 and never greased anything. I’ve actually never changed any fluids either beside the oil.

 

If there's zerks on the shaft grease the joints until the old shit flushes out and the new starts to show through. There's nothing else to grease. Fluid changes are a different story.

 

didnt need that. standad gun hit them all. Apparently needed to do some torquing as well

 

If you have zerks on the rear driveshaft, they are located on the end of one of the 4 ujoint caps on each joint.

 

I was looking at those , didn’t know how well they would work actually

 

Used it this weekend for the first time. Worked great.

 

My inner thoughts,

I douse my uniballs in dry Teflon, spray my coilovers sleeves, grease my U- joints and bushings, am constantly rebuilding parts that only have 10k miles on them and my truck squeaks, creaks and it drives me nuts. I say don’t touch shit, leave it stock, and if it breaks or starts making noise trade it in.

My tacomaworld answer,

What!!! You don’t grease your zerks every oil change! Your truck is going to come apart on the highway and cause and explosion wiping out several square miles!!!! Shame!!!

 

Hmm I might have to get one , you had no issues with it being longer ?

 

No, that made it easier to get to the front ujoint zerks that are inside of the spider.