Driveshaft

[scrappyslexus]

On occasion We hear a thump when starting fast from a stop. Driveshaft needs grease? How often should the Driveshaft be greased? What type of grease should be used? How musch should be used?

[Jim_Chow]

On occasion We hear a thump when starting fast from a stop. Driveshaft needs grease? How often should the Driveshaft be greased? What type of grease should be used? How musch should be used?

1) yes

2) every 15K mi

3) multi-purpose (no moly) NGLI 2, IIRC (I use Mobil 1 red, $6/tube)

4) in the U-joints, around 6 pumps each (you'll hear the old grease start to crackle as it seeps out. Stop when you hear this). In the slip yoke, 6 pumps max. Don't keep on pumping or you'll fill the void with grease, and the slip yoke won't be able to compress properly, transferring the force to your transfer case and potentially damaging it. The rear driveshaft compresses when the suspension compresses. Do the same for both front & rear driveshafts.

Get a good grease gun like a Lincoln w/ the flexible tube. The rigid tube ones are too difficult to use unless the car is up on a lift. I have both and only use the flexy tube one.

[nc211]

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/showthread.p...;threadid=28414

The link above will give you an idea of what to look for when doing this. We 4runner owners have been doing this for years, and we've got pretty much the same setup as you guys. In fact, I just redid mine this past Sunday. I do it about every 10k miles or so.

A couple of suggestions from my experiences:

1) Buy a grease gun that has the flexible hose, as suggested. But, either buy one with at least a 18 inch hose, or buy an extension piece for the hose. It can be VERY frustrating trying to get the attachement onto the zerk fitting of the drive shaft, when the second you take your hand off the attachement, the weight of the grease gun itself pulls it off. You need some extra slack so the gun rests on the ground while you attach the fitting to the zerk.

2) Bleed the gun to make sure when you're pumping the grease, grease is coming out, not air. If you don't, and you start injecting the grease into the zerk, you will hear the crackling of the old grease coming through the U bolts, but it's being pushed by the air, not the grease, which is bad. I for one, don't stop when I hear and see the old grease coming out. I stop when I see the new grease coming through the seals, then wipe off the old.

3) The slider yolk, which is the cause of the clunk, is a bit tricky to figure out how much grease to put into. Some say 5 or 6 pumps, some say more, like 10-15. This past weekend, I put 11 pumps into the slider sleeve's zerk. I've been driving the 4runner for two days now, and have not noticed the thump at all, and things seems to be quite smooth. How long that will last, is yet to be seen. The last time I did this, about a year ago and 10k miles, I put in 5 pumps. It lasted about 3 months, then the thump began to return, albeit not nearly as bad as it was prior to the service.

It's not hard, but not all that easy either. You'll have to move the truck back and forth about 12-18 inches to get the zerks to face you "sometimes they're facing up towards the car which makes it impossible to access." But once it's done, you'll notice smoother operations throughout the car. Even at highway speeds, no vibrations are felt in the floor from the spinning U clamps.

[denslexusgx470]

The best way to fix this problem is to have Lexus replace the driveshaft with a teflon coated one. Sounds funny, but that's what finally solved the clunk problem in my GX. Print out the TSB in the GX forum and see if you can show it to your dealership and have them do the same fix on your LX. ;)

[superdawg]

Hmmmm. This post has me reflecting back to when I greased the driveshaft yokes and probably put many pumps of grease into it, maybe increasing pressure on the transfer case. A possible fix for too much grease: How about unscrewing the grease zirk and driving over a couple dips to flex the yoke, forcing out the extra grease through the zirk hole? Does that make sense?

[Jim_Chow]

Hmmmm. This post has me reflecting back to when I greased the driveshaft yokes and probably put many pumps of grease into it, maybe increasing pressure on the transfer case. A possible fix for too much grease: How about unscrewing the grease zirk and driving over a couple dips to flex the yoke, forcing out the extra grease through the zirk hole? Does that make sense?

Yes, that is the recommended fix I've heard of.