Grease your drive shaft you lazy sods.

Did mine last month after 10 years...get off my case..lol

 

Op, you are right on point with this required maintenance. And needle bearings are very weak. When they run dry, they turn to dust when other bearings just make noise.

 

Just wow. It was a sealed non greasable U-joint that I imagine was original to the truck. I replaced them with Moog greasable u joints. Thank goodness that road trip was canceled. I felt the vibration on the way home from shopping and I'm so in tune with my truck I just knew something was not right.

 

I can't even tell you how much better my truck feels after greasing my shaft. It drives so much smoother. No more knocking when stop/go at lights and signs.

I'll be re-lubing every 5k or 12-18 months from here on out.

 

Yeah I had a strange clunking, kind of shifting, kind of settling in the drive line when I would be sitting at a red light and the AC compressor would cycle off. I'm guessing that was probably the bad U-joint?

And I will also be greasing at every 5k oil change from here on out. It was such a pain in the ass to change them and I don't want to do it again.

 

Could also be your slip yoke. That's what mine did.

 

Its amazing the clarity you have afterwards. I always try to grease it before I make any huge life decisions.

 

Yeah, I just hate fighting the urge to stroke my motor after greasing the shaft. Good thing I'm not driving a lot these days.

 

Haha. Oh man.

 

Was roughly a year since I last greased mine. Did it yesterday and oh yeah no more "bump" at stops. Super happy I did it.

 

Doing mine today. Any pointers? Just to confirm, they are all located on the drive shaft?

 

@BubbaW posted the pertinent info here: https://www.tundras.com/threads/jolt-when-stopping-at-a-light.60699/#post-1590863

Supplemental find some commentary in these two with some tips, especially with regard to one specific zerk, and the other thread covers 4WD zerks at the end:

https://www.tundras.com/threads/what-would-you-say-if-i-told-you.71827/

https://www.tundras.com/threads/black-hole-zerk-wtf.93630/

 

Yeah once I got the new one on and the other is regrease that the ride is so much smoother now. No more low speed vibration and the clunking when the AC compressor turns off at a stop has gone away.

 

So no zirks on a 2006 DC RWD ?
Tryna stay Sod-Free.

 

There's not any from the factory. But you can buy them with zerk fittings or you can buy them as a sealed unit. I prefer them with those zerk fitting so that I can grease them myself.

 

So I’ve been working on mine for the last 30min. Either they are all full (doubtful) or the zerks are frozen. Any suggestions? I tried heating up one with a heat gun with no luck. Grease just pumps outside the fitting.

 

Which ones are you referring to? The 4WD zerks are a lot harder to do. Are you sure the grease gun is fully latching onto the zerk? I've had that happen too and grease will just shoot out the side.

 

All of them on the 4wd Drive lines. The one on the rear driveshaft is frozen. I removed it and tried to shoot grease through it and it still comes out the sides. I tried the other with the same results. I’ll try again next week at work on the rack with an auto grease gun but today was a failure lol.

I did screw the tip onto the zerk and kept pressure on it as well. I think I had too much pressure on the tip because grease was coming out the sides as well as through the threads on the on the gun itself.

 

May want to try one of these if you have one on-hand. https://www.tundras.com/threads/black-hole-zerk-wtf.93630/#post-2365279

 

I feel like I was able to latch on each one. Two of them are actually right angle zerks and you can put a 10mm wrench over the zerk and twist to clock it. I had no problem getting them but grease was going everywhere except where I wanted it lol.

Since it’s all pretty crusty, I think I may go to work and use the Hotsy to knock all the chucks out. I had all kinds of crap falling on my face and into my eyes. I also need to blast the chunks off my rear drum backing plate from when the axle seal was leaking. After that, I’ll give it a shot again and see if they will take.

 

I found all of the "A" zerks (propeller shaft spiders) from the FSM actually difficult to get a good lock on. I managed to do it with a a straight tip, it just took getting exactly the right angle, and the two front ones I had to rotate the 4WD shaft by hand to get the right angle.

Next go-round, I'm going to just try my right-angle tip on the "A" zerks and see if it's an easier task. I'll say: I've been greasing stuff with zerks my whole life. I've never had an issue locking on a zerk, but my FGT really has me wanting to go out and buy one of those cheater lock-on tips with a flex hose that clips onto the zerk so there's no question, you're gonna get a good lock and the only way grease isn't going in is if something is frozen.

 

I support that.

 

So I greased my Tundra drive shaft this weekend for the first time. All 5 zerks were painted black. This leaves me with a few questions…

1. Is that a factory thing that they were painted?
2. If so, is it a fair assumption that means they have never been greased on my truck?
3. Truck has 92,000 miles. If the drive shaft was never greased before, should I be concerned? I have not observed any problems…but I also don’t know what I would be looking for.

Thanks in advance!

 

I looked at the underside of my 2005 DC 2WD and there was not a single zerk to be found along the full length of the drive shafts.

 

OK sorry, there’s just something a bit off about that first sentence. Intentional? Or am I just Beavis & Butthead level immature?

 

2wd has no zerks.

 

A previous owner could've replaced, or more likely maybe your previous owner sprayed the truck's undercarriage with Rustoleum to make it look one color or cover some rust? My truck has 25% less mileage and mine were definitely not painted black, they'd been used. I think the fair assumption is they haven't been recently used. How they got that way, if it's not a 1-owner truck is beyond the scope of what we here on Tundras.com can answer. And as for how much you need to be concerned, just get it done correctly, make it a regular thing every 5k miles or 12 months, and move on.

If it helps, my stripper name in high school was Intentionally Ambiguous.

 

If it helps, my stripper name in high school was Intentionally Ambiguous.[/QUOTE]

TMI hahaha

 

Thanks for the reminder just got to mine! Nice Sunday morning for a good lube. Just got the truck and at 145k they were really dry, zero evidence they’ve been done in years. Cleaned the zerk heads and they all pumped fine. Took it for a drive to get the grease worked in. Tried to clean up the old stuff that came out but still got a lot of flinging. Any good tips for cleaning them up after greasing?