Best source for ujoints? Best Ujts?

[Lebowski]

Is there anywhere, or any outfit (like the big name auto places, ex. NAPA, etc.), that offer the best price on ujoints? What are the best Ujts to get?

Are there greasable one's available that have the grease fitting on the cup instead of in the center of the ujt? .....therefore easier access.

 

[extremetoy1]

toyota OEM are the only way to go.... aftermaket ujoints dont come close in toughness or durability, I havent seen one break to date and many off road mags have compared their strength to 1 ton ujoints

 

[missouriman]

I have to agree.
they are more expensive but well worth it.
I know of no other U joint that can run 200,000 plus miles.
make sure that it comes in a toyota box, wrapped in wax paper with a light brown stinky grease and thick retainer clips.
that is the original jap U joint.

 

[Lebowski]

I'm in Canada. I called the local Toy dealer and they said $65 per ujt (plus 13% sales tax that we have ). What are you guys paying? I might be better off getting them stateside on my next trip or mail order.

EDIT: Ok, I searched online. Looks like 'ToyotaDiscountParts' lists them at $65.

 

[missouriman]

been awhile since I bought any... (get that part). I think that I paid about 45 last time. and bought 8 of them. so 65 is about right.

napa's best are 30.00.

anymore I would rather take a used toyota joint over an after market one. you can tell right way when you pull the cup off. if the cross has any marks in it at all I would not use it. if you wipe it clean and there are no marks you are good to go...

I really think the toyota joint at 65 is well worth three cheap ones and the pissssss me off factor of changing them out.

 

[missouriman]

but read my post above with a grain of salt....
some factory places will try to please the customer and go to Napa or some where else to supply the joint.

some one else kick in here about the way a real toyota U joint is packaged.

 

[KLF]

Having the grease zerk at the cup looks like a good idea, until you grind it off on a rock on your first wheeling trip. Then you have no way to grease the joint, and it fails early.

Get the Toyota OEM ones, it's worth the few extra $$$.

 

[missouriman]

on this same subject but just a bit of a twist.
30 years ago, if you had a part number, went to a real military surplus center and looked you could find anything that you wanted. that was some awsome stuff. maybe the government paid ,,, just numbers don't call me on it.. lets say 300.00 for a part. at these places you could buy it for like 5 bucks.

I don't know of any of these places anymore, the last one that I was at was in missouri about 10 years ago, it is gone now. I looked.

everything was packed in wax soaked boxes, had cosmoline (sp) sprayed on it, stunk like heck.
but I bet you could soak it in salt water for 20 years and still be able to use it.

I asked a millitary friend of mine that is in security about (what happened to all the jeeps when they went to the hummers).
he told me they spent billions for shreaders.
they dumped anything from jeeps to 6x6's into these. and it would just chew them up into 2x2 inch chunks. then they sent the scrap off to china... pretty messed up huh....

 

[Lebowski]

Having the grease zerk at the cup looks like a good idea, until you grind it off on a rock on your first wheeling trip. Then you have no way to grease the joint, and it fails early.

Get the Toyota OEM ones, it's worth the few extra $$$.

I've got greasable cups on my 1 ton stuff. Being more of a mud and water environment for me, it's easy to grease the ujts now. I do see how in a rock envrinment the zerks could get mashed off though.

I'll try and make sure I get the Toy ujts. I agree, on some stuff it's not worth scrimping. I try to never scrimp on drivetrain. Trail repairs aren't fun.

As a sidenote, I bought a 18v electric grease gun. WOW! Greasing the whole truck is a snap now!! Love it!

Damn that single hand pump grease gun I used for 20yrs....mind you I did have Popeye like forearms when I was a young lad. Sure that manual greaser was responsible for that.

Thanks guys.

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

Anyone checked with Cdan? I'll 3rd or 4th on the OEM Joints.

 

[missouriman]

on the subject of U joints.
when greasing them do you ever have one ear that the new grease won't come out of?
how have you gotten grease to that cup?

 

[Lebowski]

on the subject of U joints.
when greasing them do you ever have one ear that the new grease won't come out of?
how have you gotten grease to that cup?

Most of the time. If not, I rotate the driveshaft, or move the vehicle a few feet, and try again. This usually works. Most of the time it comes out all four, maybe just not equally.

 

[rockrash]

I don't know how you guys feel about Trail Gear.They have a heavy duty ujoint thats has 4700lbs force before it breaks and they run $40 bucks and they are better than a spicer joint.They also have the zerk in the middle of the joint.

 

[stormscrambler]

i isntall these things and the spicer ones are crap, they have the fitting in the cap and i can never get grease to come out all the caps stock yota u/joints are the way to go.

 

[KLF]

Regardless of how I feel about Trail Gear, I'm a big fan of Toyota OEM parts. U-joints are not something you want to go cheap on.

As a sidenote, I bought a 18v electric grease gun. WOW! Greasing the whole truck is a snap now!! Love it!

I have one of those air-operated guns, pretty cool to use. If Makita ever comes out with a cordless gun for my 18V LXT batteries, I might consider one.

This is the best grease I've found for driveshafts: Green Grease....The Best Grease Money Can Buy!....Just ask anyone who has used it!..... (Warning: turn your speakers down before clicking!) The stuff really is amazing. I also have a Mac Tools mini-gun that takes the 3-oz cartridges, so I keep it loaded with this stuff just for driveshafts.

 

[forestdan7]

I was trying to get my 4Runner back on the road fast, and got spiders from NAPA. They're working so far, but the zerk is too short and I have to take the driveshaft down to properly grease them. PITA.

My original Toyota ones went 190000 miles with pretty intermittent greasing. I'll be getting some more OEM ones.

 

[Lebowski]

So I went down to the local Toy dealer today, and whoever spoke to me on the phone was wrong. The ujts aren't $65 - they are $93. Ouch.
I think I"ll get some mail order stateside and save alittle.

EDIT: Anyone recommend a place to mail order OEM Toyota ujts from?
Who is C-dan - vendor? - in venor forum?

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

Cruiser Dan is a toyota parts guy out of New Mexico (I think...) He gives Mud members a discount (25% I think I heard...) and maybe free shipping on big orders.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/**-ih8mud-com-vendor-marketplace-**/17873-getting-cruiserdan.html

Dan will take care of you!

 

[Lebowski]

Thanks! I'll contact Dan now.

 

[Bogo]

As a sidenote, I bought a 18v electric grease gun. WOW! Greasing the whole truck is a snap now!! Love it!

I'm nolonger a fan of my electric grease gun. I can't tell if I got the joint properly greased so I'm back to using a lever action with flexible hose.

This is the best grease I've found for driveshafts: Green Grease....The Best Grease Money Can Buy!....Just ask anyone who has used it!.....

I'm now using John Deere SD Polyurea Grease everywhere. It is what JD initially uses to lube u-joints at the factory. After starting to use it on my toy's u-joints the pressed out grease is looking cleaner than ever before. They do have one that might be better for ball joints, but it's not likely all that much better. Oh, it should be about $3 to $4 a tube now with the increase in oil prices. The other thing is if you haven't been using a polyurea based grease then you want to clean out all the old grease before using.