How much grease do those zerks need??

[aljordan]

I crawled under the truck today, and started greasing the zerks.

The ones in the center of the universal joints would pop and crack (grease escaping) as I gave them a pump or 2. The zerks that greased the sliding joint wouldn't do anything but accept grease. I put a dozen or so pumps into one and quit. Thinking I was going to kill it. I would guess it would just exit out hte splines when it had enough in it... or would it.

So how much do these things really need. Is a few pumps enough every oil change. or should I go until they crack and pop as grease exits the joint.

 

[Tinkerer]

Note the infamous driveshaft lube thread:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=22649

On my LX, I ran into the same puzzlement at pumping grease in and seeing no sign of anything from the slip joints.

The front is still showing no signs of grease leakage past the seal, but I'm not too worried about that one because it doesn't have to slide very much in service, only enough to allow just a bit of float between the transfer case & the front diff.

On the other hand, my rear shaft slip joint IS showing signs of grease leakage past the shaft seal. And that is a good thing to see.

Hope the linky above helps.

 

[hoser]

As mentioned before, too much grease in the slip joint can screw up your T-case bearings as the driveshaft cannot compress completely if there is an excess amount of grease in there. Remove driveshaft, clean and relube or if lazy, you can remove zerk fitting, drive it over rough terrain to ooze the grease out and then replace zerk (as per Christo).

 

[spressomon]

Also if you pump grease in until it purges this just allows dirt and moisture to migrate back into the joint more easily. IMO it is better to grease lightly more often...