Greasing the drive shaft for 4WD

Anyone have any tips on greasing the 4WD shaft. The issue is getting the grease gun tip onto the fitting completely. The fitting is in a tight spot and the tip of the gun hits the sides of the joints. The fitting is small and seems too short to be able to attach to. Its a 2004 Tundra, is there a grease gun tip made for these trucks? I have tried a few 4WD places and they didn't have anything I could use.
Thanks for any tips

 

It's a issue that's come up in the past. @Professional Hand Model has a picture but he essentially ground off some of his grease guns tip to make it fit. I did the same thing and it worked for me.

I used my neighbors bench grinder

 

Thanks, I will look into that. I need to do something so I can grease that drive shaft.

 

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I reckon you could take the zerk off the end of this, and the fitting off your grease gun, and screw this right onto the end of the hose.

 

I had to remove a few bolts from driveline. I love the sound of victory.

 

That's not going to work. The grease gun needs to build pressure to open the zerk to force grease through the joint. That will just shoot grease on the outside of the joint.

@freerider8 just grind the side of the gease gun fitting.

Here's a link to a good thread on the subject. Including the aforementioned pic by our esteemed collegue @Professional Hand Model showing how he did it.

 

Okay. I was unsure if it would work because I don't have the 4wd unit. I was going off of pics I've seen, and things I've skimmed.

 

Custom tip picture.

A Pro Tip: You can turn the 4wd shaft with your hand if its not engaged in 4wd. Spin the shaft for the best angle of attack.

 

Thanks for the tips people. I bought one of tips tonight to try it but I may just try the grinder on the tip of the grease gun and see if that helps as the pic shows. The tip for the grease gun says that it works for hard to reach places so I am confused as to why it says that it would work for this but I am told here it will not. Just frustrating that one cannot buy a tool to do this. What do the shops do when it comes to this, do they just not grease the fittings???

 

I didn't have any problem doing mine.
If you turn the driveshaft you should be able to get a good angle to get the grease gun in there.
How you manage to turn the driveshaft is up to you.

 

That’s what she said...

 

A flexible tip helps as well............


Edit: I guess a flexible shaft would be more suited..........

 

I wasn't having issues turning the drive shaft. The issue is getting the grease gun tip to lock onto the fitting due to the narrow space on the U-Joint. I have done all the grease points on the truck except for the front drive shaft due to the gun tip not fitting into the narrow space.

 

Well, duh! Throw out the straight tube, sheesh! No wonder I didn't have any problems doing mine...

 

The next time I try and do this I will take a pic and try and load it and show you the area that I have to work with. It is narrow and flexible or not nothing fits onto the fitting.

 

My Patented Grinded Head Tip is used on a straight shaft (see pic) and is dedicated to use on the 4WD shaft only. It works better as you have better leverage with the stiff shaft and can push it on whist holding the grease gun. You’ll need to work the angles as the tip will only go in at one angle.

The shaved tip portion is removed to push past the U-Joint Ring. Once you figure that part it will make sense. One way in and one way off. Stiff line to push. You can swivel the tip on the grease gun a few degrees to make it happen. Also, the drive shaft can turn for a better angles as everyone knows.

I have a separate tip on a flexible line for the grease gun for doing the rear shaft zerks.

 

Without a mechanism on the end to allow it to latch onto the zerk, I assumed you'd get the same results as you get when your grease gun tip doesn't lock onto the zerk. It'd just squirt a gob of grease all over the zerk rather than force grease inside the u-joint. But then I Googled "grease gun needle nozzle" and this guy seems to have had good luck with it.

I imagine they either grind the grease gun tip, or have a tip that's narrow enough to fit. Grinding it doesn't damage the tip, so why not?

 

I tried that needle techinque before inventing the Grinder Tip. The needle didn’t work for me. I still have the needle and use it to lube bushings.


Reminds me of when I asked a shop to grease the zerks on the drive shaft. All they did was put some Tacky Red (wrong grease) on the zerk tip to make it look like they ‘greased it’.

I busted them when I bought a grease gun a few weeks later and started learning how to do this. No Red Tacky grease came out of the u-joints when I plumped them with the Properly Spec’d MolyB.

 

I also seen this same video when researching this as well. The weather here in Northwest PA is good today so I am going to try and grease the drive shaft today. I will post my results later.

 

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Just a fyi I'm 90% sure there is one zerk fitting that a regular grease gun fitting won't fit onto. It has space but it's a different size I guess, anyways I bought the needle attachment for it and pressed it into the zerk and it works. I forgot which one needs the needle adapter though

 

So I tried the tip provided but Pro Hand Model and it worked. I shaved the fitting down on both sides of the gun and it helps. I didn't try the needle tip yet. I have a manual and air grease gun so I shaved the tip on the manual one to try it out and it worked like a charm. I will keep the needle fitting incase I need it for anything else I own since I have it. Thanks for all the helpful tips everyone.

Thanks

 

I lubed the universal joints on the rear propeller shaft when I had it disconnected while replacing the center support bearing.

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The tip on my grease gun fits into the space on the front prop shaft without modification. Guess some may be lower profile than other. It is on a flexible shaft. It does take a little finagling and holding my mouth just right, but I have been able to engage and deliver.

 

I got the pistol pete grease gun and it fits without needing modification, it is a tight fit though.

 

I guess I was lucky. When I did mine, the zerk must have been at the perfect angle. It was a piece of cake.