Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Universal joints ? Sealed or grease able ?

I do enough pickup axles, driveline, and gears but I'm no mechanic on these just an observer. I've used and worked on machinery and in industry be it ag, excavation, process equipment, mining and the like they use greasable u-joints, pins, pillow blocks. It's just not true that an sealed joint is more durable on an light duty vehicle. That not the case.

On passenger vehicles it comes down to preference. If your ok with getting under a vehicle every 3k or 4k miles and giving it one or two pumps of grease everything will be just fine but let's be honest and admit most folks don't do this. That's the reality.

U-joints are pretty cheap and easy to replace units on light duty vehicles. The real suck comes along with vehicles in the rust belt when you tear into hubs, transaxle, and ball joint jobs. Those are fun especially AWD type cars and SUV''S like those Subarus. Hate those jobs and they'll have you using curse words that aren't yet invented.

We have a machine shop that presses in new U joints. He only uses Spicer U joints that are greaseable. He says they are the best there is. You nust grease a greaseable U joint. Some people never grease anything. I was always taught to maintain your equipment and it will last a looooong time.

my 88 4 Runner, came with a manual 5 speed and the 22 RE engine from the factory...

it also has greasable u joints.... they get greased every 10K, and years ago I was told the best to use was the red color grease, which is what farmers in the Midwest use the most of.. haven't had any U joints needing replacement since I've owned the truck new.. when it had 2 miles on the clock, I took possession of it... Sept 87..

In August 2021, its parked at the place with just short of 590,000 on the odometer...

Guess what I've been doing over the years is working out okay, on the driveline.

What is the difference in labor over the life of a non-grease u joint vs the greasing at prescribed intervals of greased u joints? Is changing non-greased joints after 120k miles.cheaper than greasing at prescribed intervals?

last time I replaced one it was $1 more for a greasable one... of course sometimes getting on the zerc fitting requires jacking up and down..... Mopar used the CV style joints instead of u-joints for a while. I think that they went back..

Ssealed or greasable! Do most people keep autos long enough to care? I prefer greasable, I keep things for a long time!

If you have a vehicle so equipped you should have it lubed every time you change your oil . 5k

I've never had a vehicle with greaseable u-joints and the few u-joints that a I have changed were just to prevent future problems on high mileage vehicles. I drove my '68 El Camino 140k before I parked it in 1978 and when I disassembled it a few years the original u-joints were still good (I will replace them). I drove my full time 4wd '78 Chevy truck almost daily from '78-'99 and didn't replace the u-joints until I converted it to part time 4wd in 1998. They still looked good.

And now days you get into alot of the non serviceable stuff. Staked in U-joints, Carrier bearings that cant be removed. One of those goes out and its sure as hell not going to be a $100 fix

The first few vehicles I owned did not have zerk-greasable U-joints (sealed had not yet been invented) and so we had to remove and repack them by hand every so often. Since 1954 I have owned and maintained a lot of vehicles, and now drive several that are more than 50 years old.

Some of our vehicles have 350k and even more miles on them. I have NEVER had a drive line U joint fail on any of them - closing in on 70 years of driving. Just keep them greased. I did hear a noise coming from the front of an old 4wd Chev, and discovered something I never knew existed - a double cardan joint twixt TC and front diff. Needed lube and was able to save it.

As for sealed non-greasable components, I am no expert and have only owned a couple of vehicles having those. And, that is where failures have occurred. Carrier bearing on big pickup, sealed front hubs hubs on modern 4wd, and what next? Maybe the first U joint fail?

A 2006 GM dually takes the same u joint as a 1981 Blazer. Put Strange racing u joints in your vehicle and don't worry about u joints anymore.

Most all the equipment you mention with greaseable u-joints are probably on a service schedule. Equipment I work on gets the u-joints greased every 5500 miles. We hardly ever replace u-joints. Most personal vehicles might get a oil change when the light or warning goes off. If someone is relying on the person doing their oil change to grease everything... well...

Solids. I’ve snapped front axle U joints that were greasable. Finally changed out my 06 dodge u-joints last fall. They were rusted so badly that I cut yoke and used a 100 ton press to get them out of the shafts. The needle bearings were still ok after 90k miles and 15 years. Perchance a solid starts to die, they’ll usually squeak a bunch beforehand.

Dodges are hard on stuff, for what ever reason. More so than the other rigs

Yes they are. It's easy to see why as the ball joints geometry makes it fight against itself.

Greasable. I grease them every 10,000 miles when I change my oil. 2012 Toyota Tacoma with 200k hard miles on the original u joints BTW.

The hardest thing on Ujoints is to have the geometry of the opposing faces not measured and adjusted properly. The front pinion flange and the rear of the transmission should be within 2-3 degrees of each other for long Ujoint life and reliable drive line performance. A lot of guys with jacked up trucks and other "enhancements" don't know this or forget to adjust their differential angle and end up breaking parts that don't need to ....

Here's a quick PSA for those of you with greaseable zircs.



You know how sometimes zircs get plugged with grit / grime / dried grease, and it's impossible to get them to break loose and accept new grease? No matter how hard you squeeze on the grease gun lever handle?

PITA, isn't it?



Well - simply wipe a tad bit of grease on the tit of the zirc just before you sell the vehicle, to make it look like you really take good care of your shít.



This concludes your PSA for the day - carry on.