OK,, finally got the rear driveshaft off, had to borrow a neighbors torch and heat up those 8 MM bolts to get it loose to take off.. and replaced the rear U-Joint, I bought a "better" one with a grease zerk on it, and bolted it all up, now I cannot seem to get my grease gun to squeeze between the yoke to hookup..

any ideas? I dont think I can just take the zerk off and try a 90 degree one ( I used the one it came with ) do they make special grease fittings?

dont want to have to replace this one again, nor take down that driveshaft, just to grease the U-Joint..

If the grease gun doesn't fit you most likely have the u-joint in the wrong orientation. Been there. Done that. Had to remove the driveshaft every time I greased it. When I recently installed new u-joints I triple checked the orientation of the grease fitting before installing.

I feel your pain...didn't realize until this past weekend that the dshaft shop screwed me with where my zerks are pointing.

Maybe they will fix it for you Ben since it's their mistake.

Yup, zerk's facing the wrong direction.

Personally-- I don't use greasables anymore. I bought my u-joints from a driveline shop in Sacramento that primarily does business in big rigs and other industrial applications. In the lobby they were using a large yolk as a table... I'm not kidding... The guy said it was for a factory or ship or something. From end to end it was at least 3 feet.

Anyway-- he told me that non-greasables hold a better seal and will remain healthy for a longer period of time than the greasables. He also said they're stronger because they don't have the cross section drilled out for the grease channels.

Food for thought.

^^^Agree with that. I prefer non-greasables. My philosophy is, if grease can get in, so can other stuff. Not to mention, I know for a fact, I don't maintain them often enough or probably even correctly. Once every now and then if I remember to squirt some grease in them, I do, if not...they could be rolling around dry for all I know.

73F100Shortbed said:

Maybe they will fix it for you Ben since it's their mistake.

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Ehh...it's no biggie. It takes me all of 2 minutes to drop a driveshaft, over the life of the u-joint, I'd spend more time driving up and back for them to swap around the u-joints.

UTfball68 said:

Not to mention, I know for a fact, I don't maintain them often enough or probably even correctly. Once every now and then if I remember to squirt some grease in them, I do, if not...they could be rolling around dry for all I know.

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That was another of his arguments-- he said the greasables rely on the user keeping up with the greasing... And he said at the rate that they use and expend grease you really have to grease them fairly often to keep them at prime grease level. Though you can get away with less grease for a while, it shortens the life of the join.

I also personally hate climbing under my truck and see grease slung everywhere after the first few drives post-greasing.

Skandocious said:

That was another of his arguments-- he said the greasables rely on the user keeping up with the greasing... And he said at the rate that they use and expend grease you really have to grease them fairly often to keep them at prime grease level. Though you can get away with less grease for a while, it shortens the life of the join.

I also personally just hate climbing under my truck and see grease slung after the first view drives post-greasing.

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Grease slung everywhere keeps the rust away

73F100Shortbed said:

Grease slung everywhere keeps the rust away

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And gets all over my good cloths when I climb under

You aren't supposed to wear good clothes when under the truck

So I like to look good. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

LOL ..................

73F100Shortbed said:

You aren't supposed to wear good clothes when under the truck

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You're in Cali anyways...you don't have rust.

Skandocious said:

Yup, zerk's facing the wrong direction.

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wonder how I did that? backwards? as it wasn't a 90degree zerk? I hope to not have to drop the driveshaft again, I had to heat up that yolk just to loosen up those 8MM bolts on it...

.

Skandocious said:

In the lobby they were using a large yolk as a table... I'm not kidding... The guy said it was for a factory or ship or something. From end to end it was at least 3 feet.

Click to expand...

would love to see a picture of that!

You don't use a 90 deg. zerk. It is just that you have the u-joint in backwards such that the fitting isn't in the right direction. If I think about it tomorrow I'll take a picture of mine to show you how it should be in the yoke. It won't hurt anything the way you have it other then you having to remove the shaft to put some grease in. Put a little anti-sieze on your bolts and they should come out easy enough.

73F100Shortbed said:

Put a little anti-sieze on your bolts and they should come out easy enough.

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On the contrary! He should definitely be using loctite on driveshaft bolts.

You can get a grease needle for hard to get places like cv type driveshafts or in your case. Non greaseable are deffinitly the way to go, not hollow so way stronger as mentioned.

I don't use anything on my bolts and have no problem. If he has to use a torch to remove them loctite won't help lol.

they had loctite already on them, I have used blue and red before, and have the red on them now.. it looks like they used some green looking stuff, probably a liquid type weld, as they were on very tight....

I'm going to get a grease needle to try and get it greased up, of course the guys at orielly told me it wouldn't work for that application...

I don't see how a needle will help you out either. I can't use one on my u-joints.