How much grease when lub-ing?

[Americanrascal]

I've been greasing vehicles and equipment for decades, but I've never been sure exactly if I'm getting it right.

I greased my F53 today and hit all the joints as prescribed and pumped until some grease was revealed in the joint served by each fitting. But I always wondered if I should be spending more time trying to force out a larger quantity of the older grease at each point rather than just looking for an appearance or obvious movement of grease into a fitting serving a specific joint? Is there a right or wrong way to do this?

[hfbundy]

I do it the way you describe. I try to put enough grease in to see the seal expand or evidence of expulsion if there is no seal. In my opinion, more is messy and overkill.

[SuperGewl]

The Bigger the Blob the Better the job
OK just kidding.
What you said sounds about right, if you put too much you could cause the seal to open up and not maintain a good seal which would then lead to dirt getting into the joint and causing problems.

[twinboat]

On the the 4 king pin greasing points, the recommendation is to pump in new grease until you see it comming out.
Whe greasing the lower king pin fittings, leave the vehicles wheels on the ground or ramp, so the grease pushs up thru the thrust bearings.

The reason is to purge the old, water mixed, contamanated grease out.

[Americanrascal]

Thanks all- I guess I haven't messed up too bad then over the past 50 years. I've just been connecting to the fitting and pumping till I saw some. Twinboat that's great info on the King Pins!

[cbilodeau]

If the grease coming out is contaminated with rust inside, then I suppose we must get rid of it by pushing more new grease.

I just removed my rear drive shaft to put grease on the Slip Joint. The Slip Joint had no grease so I had to use a hammer to slip it out. Since the slip joint was jammed, the last rear u-joint was worned out. Also the support bearing just before the slip joint was weared out since it was acting as a "slip joint". So if we don't put grease in the slip joint, the price is higher later.

I use long tin tools to remove the rust and added grease to the slip joint. The boot on the slip joint has to be very sealed otherwise water jet inside the slip joint.

[Americanrascal]

Originally Posted by cbilodeau

If the grease coming out is contaminated with rust inside, then I suppose we must get rid of it by pushing more new grease.

I just removed my rear drive shaft to put grease on the Slip Joint. The Slip Joint had no grease so I had to use a hammer to slip it out. Since the slip joint was jammed, the last rear u-joint was worned out. Also the support bearing just before the slip joint was weared out since it was acting as a "slip joint". So if we don't put grease in the slip joint, the price is higher later.

I use long tin tools to remove the rust and added grease to the slip joint. The boot on the slip joint has to be very sealed otherwise water jet inside the slip joint.

I haven't found grease points for these in my 2014 and 2016 F53. Am I missing them or has Ford eliminated these points?
Joe

[TeJay]

It has been reported by some that they do have grease fitting at the U-joints and others report not seeing any. One would believe that a heavy duty truck chassis is expected to get more HD use than just a standard truck and therefore should have grease fittings.

We have none in our chassis either. There's not much one can do except removing the U-joint and taking the cups off and adding some grease. Or after 20-30,000 miles replace all U-joints and installing new joints with grease fittings.

TeJay

[cbilodeau]

Originally Posted by americanrasc

I haven't found grease points for these in my 2014 and 2016 F53. Am I missing them or has Ford eliminated these points?
Joe

At the DriveShaft shop I went to, the owner told me that Ford no more have nipples on the u-joints. He said a U-Joint with a grease fitting can almost last forever as long as you put grease correctly.

So my conclusion is this: If you don't have grease fittings your u-joint will fail one day when you don't expect it and it will make some noise. If you have grease fitting, your u-joint will last until you forget to grease them. When you add grease, you should see grease coming out idealy on each of the four arms of the u-joint.

But I am no expert. I am new to this.

Here are some informations I have learned at that shop and useful to share:

1 - When you change yourself the u-joint, if you break the end of the driveshaft or the yoke or anything else on the driveshaft they can repair it very easily in a Drive shop. They can remove the end of the driveshaft (the yoke part) and solder a new one and they are commons.

2 - A driveshaft is an empty tube. It also act like a "fuse" in an electrical system. If ever your wheels jams suddently for any reason, the tube will break apart and this will save your transmission and engine. I saw a broken driveshaft tube in the shop, I was very surprised.

3 - They charge 80$Can to balance a drive shaft. If your driveshaft is made of three sections like mine it would be 3 x 80$Can. But I did not need to have it balance.

4 - The owner told me that it would be ideal if I could remove the slip yoke every one or two year to put-verify the grease in it. I then told him I would fill the whole rubber boot with grease and he said I should be careful since it could unbalance the driveshaft if I had 1 pound of grease splashing in the boot at high speed.

5 - For the owner of this driveshaft shop, a Ford u-joint without a grease nipple fitting is a low quality u-joint.

6 - This shop owner was not impressed by the new u-joint I had bought at rockauto.com, I had the two models rockauto sell (Moog and Precision). He said that a driveshaft shop has u-joint for the same price or less and of better heavy-duty quality. I suppose he said that to make more money but I am not sure, he could be right. The ones at rockauto seemed very very good to me. I had read on the Internet that the Moog were the best on the market but for this shop owner his u-joint are much better!!!