Philip

Not enough for me to worry about. I pull a solid 19 most of the time. In my area most normal winters a 2WD would be setting from late Dec to middle March due to ice/snow. It is a pain to pull up to a stop light then you can't move when it turns green. Even with my L/S there have been times I have had to pull it into 4x4 to get away from a light.

deere country

The biggest problem I find in greasable ujoints is they are to commonly over greased. Especially trucks that are in the rust belt, the moment you push grease past the seal it allows contaminants into the joint. Once that happens it's only a matter of time before it fails prematurely. I think most times you would be better of not greasing them instead of opening up that seal.

Just like the picture posted with the joint half bad, where did all the rust in it come from? It doesn't look to me like it failed directly from a lack of grease but more like a contaminant that caused it to rust and fill the joint with rust and metal flake?

NJTman

So, in your opinion, by greasing and purging the existing grease and contaminants out, you're causing it to fail ?

Well, that's just plain silly to me, as if fresh grease was going into all 4 caps (as it should be designed to do), vs just the two, you would be getting a fresh application of grease to each cap, each time you greased it

Since I'm the one who disassembled the u joint, and found the passages to the two caps BLOCKED (if you had read that in the previous post), and unable to pass grease through them

You are, however, correct about one thing. The seals that these U joints have are GARBAGE. They stretch out, and are unable to contain grease within. Once this occurs, you have no other option other than to increase the frequency of greasing to expel the contaminants that enter, or replace them with new.

torquefan

I worked on Dodges in a ranching community for many years and saw enough failed u-joints that I can completely agree with this. The greaseable joints would often fail in a year or two, whether they were serviced regularly or not, while the trucks with the non-greaseable joints would go on pretty much forever.
Then the third gen trucks came along with the AAM joints, and they were even worse yet! I think half of those never even got any grease put in during manufacture.

deere country

I did read your post in its entirety. So with that how did the two caps that where pluged become pluged? I am sure you greased it as part of a regular service. But with that can you tell me how does it plug two sides and not the other two if it always had grease in it? If it was full of grease then how is it now full of rust on two ends and not the other two? I dought your grease gun has rust in it.

NJTman

Why ?

Cheap seals, cheap initial grease, cheap metal, poor tolerances, etc.

The two ports which Should allow grease to flow outwards to the two caps were blocked with rock hard material. It appeared to be a waxy greasy substance which could only be dislodged with a thin rod tapped through with a hammer.
Don't know why it was in the bores. I only grease with amsoil multipurpose grease, which I've not had any issue with otherwise.

Imo, if the seals were tighter, and the blockages weren't in place, full, 4 way passage of grease may have been possible, as the two caps that were receiving grease prevention of the exit of grease would have backflowed to the other two caps.

Over all, a badly designed product.

Otoh, the Spicer non greaseable seals were significantly more stout and tighter, preventing contamination intrusion. The metal surfaces both on the cross, and the needle bearings in the Spicer units seem to be made of a high quality highly polished metal, Very impressed with the Spicer units.

j_martin

I have had incompatible organic lube components combine into a very hard plastic substance in the power mixer. The combination was a synthetic oil and a tackifier.

Perhaps ordinary automotive grease would work better.

deere country

[QUOTE=NJTman;3301120]Why ?

Cheap seals, cheap initial grease, cheap metal, poor tolerances, etc.[/QUOTE/]

If any of the above were the cause how did it affect only 2 caps and not all 4?

MrFusion

I've pumped grease into lot of U-joints. I rarely see grease come out of more than one cap at first. In fact most of the time it only comes out of one cap. Makes sense because pressure will follow the path of least resistance. Which ever seal fails first will be the one that gets fresh grease.

One factor that people overlook is the centrifugal force acting on the grease in the U-joint. Centrifugal force will push grease equally to all points far better than pressure.

Another thing that I have noticed is that "greasable" U-joints come from the factory with only enough grease to hold the needle bearings into the caps for assembly. Most people never fully grease the U-joints after installation assuming that they are adequately greased from the factory. The failure probably begins in the first 5K miles with inadequate grease.

I'm going to run one greasable and one nongreasable U-joint when I rebuild my rear driveshaft and see which one lasts longer pumping grease every oil change around 4k miles.

mknittle

[QUOTE=deere country;3301125]Cheap grease gun operator.

diesel402004

Love how my "ending the thread" post with an update spawned another (repeated many times in this forum if you search the history) thread/discussion But seriously this idea is as good a test as any. Had the original non-greasable joints on my front axle fail at 100k. Greaseable replacements still going strong @ 400k+ on that rig, greased every oil change. Ive already greased this center one 3 times to make sure the factory grease has been supplemented. No surprise, but as I was pressing the new caps on I found one that had a needle out of place and laying horizontal at the end of the cap