Prop shaft greasing

I'm going to use a grease gun. I've picked up a tube of Valvoline Lithium NLGI 2 Multi Purpose grease. I suppose I'll buy a second gun for the Moly grease. I'm going to see if I can get a mini gun & some mini tubes for that. I was thinking of just using the multi for everything but since I've invested this much into the truck there's no sense in cheaping out on the protection.
 
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ADK Explorer said:
I'm going to use a grease gun. I've picked up a tube of Valvoline Lithium NLGI 2 Multi Purpose grease. I suppose I'll buy a second gun for the Moly grease. I'm going to see if I can get a mini gun & some mini tubes for that. I was thinking of just using the multi for everything but since I've invested this much into the truck there's no sense in cheaping out on the protection.
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Are you going to do 1-2 pumps or pump until you see some grease leak out? Not too sure how much to add
 
Louise said:
Are you going to do 1-2 pumps or pump until you see some grease leak out? Not too sure how much to add
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Well considering everything I've read here I'll do 2 cautious pumps to the slip yokes, watching for movement but won't over do it and maybe be more liberal with the spiders. I'm going to call my dealer service and see what they say. I will also check them after driving for a bit. I've seen a lot of vehicles run for a long time without people being neurotic about greasing them. I think keeping on eye on them and putting a little in when they look dry should be sufficient.
 
ADK Explorer said:
Well considering everything I've read here I'll do 2 cautious pumps to the slip yokes, watching for movement but won't over do it and maybe be more liberal with the spiders. I'm going to call my dealer service and see what they say. I will also check them after driving for a bit. I've seen a lot of vehicles run for a long time without people being neurotic about greasing them. I think keeping on eye on them and putting a little in when they look dry should be sufficient.
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Gotcha, thank you. I'll do the same sometime this weekend. Keep us posted!
 
I spoke with a guy at my dealer service center. He said not to put too much grease into the slide yolks. He said the worst thing that will happen is that the grease will fling all over, get on your muffler, and smell really bad. He said if it's your first time doing it you'll probably overfill it, smell it and realize not to put so much in next time. I asked him about filling the spider yolks to the point of purging out the old grease and grime and he said yes that's what they do. I also asked about the importance of using the molly on the slip yokes and he said if your greasing your axle shafts your ahead of 99% of the people out there and you don't really need to worry about that.

So as I suspected as long as you're keeping an eye on them and keeping lube in there they should be fine. I am going to use the multi-purpose lithium grease on everything and just make sure I keep them lubed on a regular basis. I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling and the grease gun is coming with me so not having to carry two just makes things that much easier.
 
renau001 said:
Thanks, appreciate and respect your input, as I've seen a lot of the questions you've answered for members, especially around DIY maintenance. Just wondering about this one in particular cos there are so many different opinions. For instance, over at this thread at ih8mud https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/too-much-grease-in-drive-shaft.378824/. One guy makes a good argument about why you need to grease until some grease purges from the seal to ensure you're actually pushing grease to the splines. But others talk about how too much can put pressure in the wrong places. I can make sense of both schools of thought. But has anybody actually experienced problems from greasing until the seal purges vs just using 1-2 pumps?
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I work for a little u-joint and driveline company that employs some 30k people in 60+ countries. Our head of QC emphasizes that you must see grease purge from all 4 caps. I have always done the same since 16 years old and never had an issue burning up u-joints.

I hear customers tell me that if you add too much grease the bearing cap seal is permanently broken, etc. They don't know what they are talking about. Not the case for u-joints at all. But you don't want to blow the DS dust cap off when greasing the slip. That's the one where enough is enough. Let the shaft expand a little and call it good. Do it again in another 5-10k if you didn't think it was enough the first time. Then again, it pretty much pops back on if you do blow it. Usually.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
ADK Explorer said:
I spoke with a guy at my dealer service center. He said not to put too much grease into the slide yolks. He said the worst thing that will happen is that the grease will fling all over, get on your muffler, and smell really bad. He said if it's your first time doing it you'll probably overfill it, smell it and realize not to put so much in next time. I asked him about filling the spider yolks to the point of purging out the old grease and grime and he said yes that's what they do. I also asked about the importance of using the molly on the slip yokes and he said if your greasing your axle shafts your ahead of 99% of the people out there and you don't really need to worry about that.

So as I suspected as long as you're keeping an eye on them and keeping lube in there they should be fine. I am going to use the multi-purpose lithium grease on everything and just make sure I keep them lubed on a regular basis. I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling and the grease gun is coming with me so not having to carry two just makes things that much easier.
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Appreciate the follow up!
 
kenwilliams0803 said:
I work for a little u-joint and driveline company that employs some 30k people in 60+ countries. Our head of QC emphasizes that you must see grease purge from all 4 caps. I have always done the same since 16 years old and never had an issue burning up u-joints.

I hear customers tell me that if you add too much grease the bearing cap seal is permanently broken, etc. They don't know what they are talking about. Not the case for u-joints at all. But you don't want to blow the DS dust cap off when greasing the slip. That's the one where enough is enough. Let the shaft expand a little and call it good. Do it again in another 5-10k if you didn't think it was enough the first time. Then again, it pretty much pops back on if you do blow it. Usually.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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moly lube or just non moly lithium? non moly grease probably oozes out while moly might actually create too tight of a seal locking and not allowing the moly grease to come out.
 
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Jeeze this thread is crazy, I do my own service and want to start doing this as well and there are so many GD trains of thought going on here, I don't know what to believe or even do :(
 
sinks88 said:
Jeeze this thread is crazy, I do my own service and want to start doing this as well and there are so many GD trains of thought going on here, I don't know what to believe or even do :(
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That's because the driveshafts are extremely durable and everything here works just fine. By far the worst thing you can do is not grease them at all.

I'm not sure where these last posts came from exactly or what they're trying to say. I think they're just saying the same thing as the rest of the thread: U-Joints there's not really such a thing as too much. Make sure the grease pushes out all the way around. Slip joint just a few squirts. It's not half as critical as people on here make out - just don't go crazy. A little too little or a little too much doesn't matter. You just don't want a lot too much.

As I said early in this thread this is really not rocket engineering (not even rocket science).
 
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sinks88 said:
Jeeze this thread is crazy, I do my own service and want to start doing this as well and there are so many GD trains of thought going on here, I don't know what to believe or even do :(
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I went through the 5 pages, so here's the TL : DR:

Follow what ADK explorer and MossJenks are saying on page 5. Use pictures on page 1 to see where everything is.

If you're extremely by the book about it, page 1 has specifics on the type of grease to use depending on location.
 
I know right! You'd think we were debating philosophy. Just finished mine up. Used Multi Purpose lithium for all 6. Ended up pumping 6 pumps into the U-joints until I saw the fresh red grease coming out and then wiped off the excess. Pumped 4 pumps into both slip yokes, still didn't see any movement so figured that was good enough and left it at that. It did take 3 tries to pull the truck forward a bit to get the rear U-joint zerk lined up just right. I got lucky with the front two on the rear shaft, they were perfectly lined up. Hardest part about the whole experience was getting the damn hose fitting off the zerks. Even punched myself in the face pulling one off. LOL

Interesting little lesson in you get what you pay for. I bought a$15 gun from Walmart which did not work. Put the grease tube in, Pumped, and pumped and pumped and nothing. Opened it up and the grease wasn't anywhere near the port. So wasted an hour taking it back to Wally World to return the damn thing, went to AutoZone, bought one for 20 bucks and it worked just fine. I know. Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.
 
Hypothetically, how many miles can one drive before doing this grease service? I asked a number of dealers and they said that they dont have grease guns even and in nyc there isn't a place to do this service myself such as in a driveway. Also, i do not do any off roading so not sure if that helps with extending the service interval.
 
Hypothetically a long way. But you must be somehow asking the question wrong. Do dealerships in New York service cars or are they sales showrooms only? Anyplace that works on cars won't have one grease gun - they'll have many! So if you can't find a Toyota dealership to do it just find a place that services cars. Grease Monkey, Pep Boys, Firestone, I don't know what you have in New York - maybe find an old school gas station that services cars? What do you do if you have a dead battery?
 
lenny1389 said:
Hypothetically, how many miles can one drive before doing this grease service? I asked a number of dealers and they said that they dont have grease guns even and in nyc there isn't a place to do this service myself such as in a driveway. Also, i do not do any off roading so not sure if that helps with extending the service interval.
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According to the maintenance manual every 5000 miles.
 
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