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Greasing U-joints

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RJS

RJS

Jedi Warrior
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Hi

How often do you need to grease u-joints? I was under the car yesterday and hit three problems
1. Some of the u-joints are sealed with no grease nipple
2. Others I cannot connect my grease gun b/c the nozzle on the grease gun is too big and interferes with the drive/axel shaft yokes
3. Any tricks to access the outer axel shaft u-joint since they are obscured in the trailing arm housing?

Thanks

Bob
 
Some u joints that appear to be sealed have a slotted plug that can be removed and a fitting inserted. You can try a thinner nozzle or pull the existing grease fitting and replace it, for greasing purposes only, with a longer fitting. Put the original back in when finished.
 
DougF said:
Some u joints that appear to be sealed have a slotted plug that can be removed and a fitting inserted. You can try a thinner nozzle or pull the existing grease fitting and replace it, for greasing purposes only, with a longer fitting. Put the original back in when finished.
Click to expand...

Well yeah...you can always do that
 
Plus there are "needle tip" adaptors for your grease gun.
If the U-joint is not greasable, don't worry about it is my feeling about it.
 
Welcome to "Lubricated for life". Which is another way of saying: when it fails due to lack of lubrication, replace it.
 
You can also buy 45 and 90 degree zerks to make lubrication easier....
 
There is also a gun tip for right-angle approach to the zerk (I use it on the propshaft slider) perhaps that would help for question #3.
 
I probably should just replace all the U joints on my car before i put the body on it, but I just greased up the ones that had zerk fittings and ignored the ones that were 'sealed' as everything was moving alright and no noises. Hopefully it wont come back and bite me in a year or two =)

You should be able to get a flex-hose fitting for your grease gun that will let you snake it around to the drive shaft u joints.

The U Joints in my half shafts have real long zerk fittings that make them easy to reach, you can probably get the same for your driveshaft i'd assume.
 
I'd pull the axles and grease the joints if there is a place for a zerk fitting. Done it lots of times on my 4A. It's a pain but not as much a pain as a roadside breakdown.

If sealed then it is time to change them if you don't know how many miles are on them.
 
On our little cars I would think wearing out is more of a factor than breaking the U-joints. A dry one will squeak. A worn one will vibrate. When I used to put 700+ horsepower through U-joints they would, very infrequently, shatter. We are only putting a hundred horses or so through these, so I can't see breaking one.

JMHO

John
 
They don't need to break to cause a roadside breakdown and the need for a tow. I agree it's doubtful that our HP would break a U-Joint. But vibration at any speed could lead to more problems and an unpleasant drive. Grease them or change them if in doubt is my recomendation.
 
If worn enough, they will break. I've never let a TR get that bad, but one broke on my second car (a 65 Olds) while just driving down the street, certainly much less than 100 hp going through it. Fortunately I wasn't going very fast, so when the driveshaft dug into the road it just stopped the car rather than flipping it.
 
Oh, I had one fail on the drive shaft up on the parkway at 60 MPH. Fortunately it didn't completely let go - I don't even want to think about that. It held together until I could get to the side of the road. It sounded like a machine gun in my lap as the shaft was hitting the tunnel. Scared the you know what out of me.

The cause was not age or lack of grease though. Turns out my (now former) mechanic either installed the wrong size u-joint or failed to secure the cap. Talk about scary.

BTW, my u-joints have 8k miles on them.

Bob
 
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