Rear end clunk **Solved**

[Vespula]

I grease with a special locking attachment that holds on to the nipple so the grease is going in and takes about 15 pumps until it comes out of the shaft ...so then I quit ....it proceeds over the next 3000 miles to spray all over the underside of the truck and then begins to clunk again ....so it’s not a greasing problem ... just fed up with doing it ...need to find the old thread and which Lexus part number ...maybe I can find it on recalls for the Lexus GX 460/470

Wow. Thats a different issue you have. Your issue doesnt sound like neglect of greasing, but more some kind of other seal failure?

Anyway, I can point you to the thread with the TSB if that helps.
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/4th-gen-t4rs/124377-t-sb-0121-12-its-finally-here.html

 

[Mullett757]

Believe it or not I just stopped greasing it and it went away 2 months later. I also lifted 3/2 w/ all new springs and shocks so i dont know if that helped too? I just tired of greasing and it doing nothing

 

[djpope09]

My clunk is gone as of five days ago. I was researching the many posts on here about it.... One post in particular basically implied that not enough grease was being pumped into the slip yoke zerks. This person talked about 15-20 pumps (or thereabouts) but the key was doing it until you actually saw the silver part of the metal shaft MOVE! Then he pumped a few more in there.

This got me wondering - I bet I didnt put enough in and if I did maybe thats the answer and I just needed to be pumping more.

I got under there and hooked up my grease gun to the front zerk and watched the shaft pumping in grease one pump at a time.... FINALLY after about 15 pumps I saw it! The shaft moved out about 1mm ... each pump after that I saw it move another millimeter... I proceeded to pump 4-5 more pumps until the shaft had moved about 1/2 to 3/4 inches from where it was. I did this because I wanted it to have a little extra logically assuming the thing was way under greased if it took that many pumps.

Then I moved to the rear wheel drive shaft and repeated.
Again, it was about 15-18 pumps of grease before i saw the shaft start to move. Same thing... 4-5 more pumps until the shaft moved out about 1/2 to 3/4 inches from where it was.

Went out and drove the 4r..... AMAZING. Even the brake pedal seemed slightly firmer, to which I dont have any understanding of why, but the clunk was GONE.

The next day, I threw it in drive from park and it went clunk, so I took the opportunity to go exercise the gears a bit (just made sense to me) so I went into reverse, backed up 3 feet, applied brakes, went into drive smoothly, rolled forward 3 feet, applied brakes, back to reverse.... you get the idea, a few times and soon it was even moving R to D very smoothly... I feel like I was distributing the grease.... This is unrelated and not required, but just sharing what I did thinking I was helping with the grease distribution faster.

Anyway, its been days now and my 4r is not clunking when I come to stops while driving and not clunking when i let off the brake at stoplights anymore at all.....no one "tapping me from behind".... makes me want to shout to the rooftops... GREASE GREASE GREASE and make it go away. If you have a clunk, maybe you just didnt grease enough... grease until you see the shaft moving with each pump.

Now, will nirvana last for me? I dont know. How long? I dont know. But the clunk I had when I got the truck 3 months ago and have been living with consistently is now gone just from putting ENOUGH grease in there. if it comes back I may assume the grease has been distrubuted and it needs more.... and if so, I will repeat the process again until I see the shaft move once... I assume and think at some point if it comes back, eventually I will grease enough that it will be full and I wont have to do this as much if at all.

Do you have the clunk? Thunk, tap, lurch, or whatever you want to call it???
Go do what I did and report back!!

When you say slip yoke, which fitting at the front of the driveshaft are you referring to? I was doing it based off another thread and one member said not to overfill the number 2 fitting in my attached picture because it can pop the dust seal. Since you said you did the fittings at the front and back, I think you mean you pumped 20 pumps into fitting number 1 in the picture since the rear fitting is the same (a u-joint cardan). I just want to be sure before I go blow out some seals by mistake this weekend.

This is the thread I was using in case anyone hasn't seen it:
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/maintenance-detailing/220638-greasing-driveshaft-4th-gen.html

 

[jhhennes]

So I've been having this problem as well, and mine is a 2WD 09. I stopped by a Firestone to see if I could get my tires balanced while killing time and asked if they could do this as well... guy says sure, sends the tech out to the truck, comes back in and says

"I didn't see any fittings on your's, I think it's non-serviceable"

Does this sound right?

 

[Bluesky 07]

Do you have any idea what that special attachment is called? I absolutely hate the standard zirk grease gun fitting.

I use this one and it works very well.

 

[mjotrainbrain]

I use this one and it works very well.

Awesome, thank you much.

 

[alia176]

One thing to keep in mind when you pump 15 pumps of grease into a DS slip yoke spline area. Too much grease will prevent the rear DS from moving in and out as necessary. Remember the DS moves up/down and and the slip yoke moves in/out with the rear axle housing when you go over bumps or come to a stop.

So, when you fill this chamber with full of grease, you *maybe* creating a hydrolock condition. In another words, the DS can no longer compress and it's extended out by the force of too much grease. Sometimes this will put undue forces on the Transfer case rear output flange and possibly the bearing behind the flange. You've effectively removed the "slip yoke" feature of the rear DS and turned it into a solid shaft DS.

A good thing to do is to remove the zerk fitting from the DS yoke and drive it around for a few days. This will push the extra grease out and of course fling it in a circle under your vehicle, as your rear suspension moves up/down. By doing this trick, the hydrolocking doesn't occur and the DS can collapse/extend as it needs to. Then put the zerk fitting back on.