Just wondering if greasing the drive shaft u-joints are part of the 550's regular maintenance or if they are "lifetime" u-joints. I will eventually crawl under there and check for zerks during my first oil change, but I'm only at 200 miles.
Anyone know if the GX550 Has Grease-able U-Joints
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Did my first oil change yesterday, and greased the driveshaft while I had the skid plates off and everything up in the air. Obviously, it does have zerks! The GX550 has a front propeller shaft and a rear propeller shaft. The front has 3 zerks, one at each spider and one for the slip yoke. The rear has 2 zerks, one at each spider.
Bill of materials:
Lucas Red and Tacky Grease
Grease gun with zerk fitting
10mm socket to drop the skid plates
12mm socket and socket extensions to remove 2 heat shields
4 jack stands
1 floor jack.
Plenty of rags
As suspected, the u-joints only had assembly grease and were not completely packed. It took about 5 pumps each before they started purging the old grease. I gave them all about 15 pumps total to make sure the old stuff was purged. DO NOT OVERFILL THE SLIP YOKE WITH GREASE. The service manual says to only pump until the slip yoke starts to move (about 3 pumps for me).
Its probably easiest to do this with the whole vehicle on jack stands and the transmission in neutral so that you can move the wheels and get the propeller shafts in the right position to access the zerks. I did have to remove two heat shields, one on the rear of the front propeller, and one on the front of the rear propeller. You will need a 12mm socket and an assortment of extensions for this.
The propeller shaft bolts should all be 65 foot pounds if you wish to check those. Rather than fussing with the tight spaces, and dealing with crowfoot extensions for my torque wrench, my approach will be to mark them with a paint pen to see if they loosen over time.
Edit: I can do a more detailed writeup if there is an appetite here for it. LMK.
Bill of materials:
Lucas Red and Tacky Grease
Grease gun with zerk fitting
10mm socket to drop the skid plates
12mm socket and socket extensions to remove 2 heat shields
4 jack stands
1 floor jack.
Plenty of rags
As suspected, the u-joints only had assembly grease and were not completely packed. It took about 5 pumps each before they started purging the old grease. I gave them all about 15 pumps total to make sure the old stuff was purged. DO NOT OVERFILL THE SLIP YOKE WITH GREASE. The service manual says to only pump until the slip yoke starts to move (about 3 pumps for me).
Its probably easiest to do this with the whole vehicle on jack stands and the transmission in neutral so that you can move the wheels and get the propeller shafts in the right position to access the zerks. I did have to remove two heat shields, one on the rear of the front propeller, and one on the front of the rear propeller. You will need a 12mm socket and an assortment of extensions for this.
The propeller shaft bolts should all be 65 foot pounds if you wish to check those. Rather than fussing with the tight spaces, and dealing with crowfoot extensions for my torque wrench, my approach will be to mark them with a paint pen to see if they loosen over time.
Edit: I can do a more detailed writeup if there is an appetite here for it. LMK.
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I was curious about this as well after reading the service manual which is heavy on instructions to lubricate the prop shafts (particularly within 24 hours of being submerged, as if that's practical 
).
Thanks for the info!
).Thanks for the info!
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- #6
Dealer did this for me recently, err at least said they did 
Dealer did this for me recently, err at least said they did
Did you see any improvements with transmission shifting (or jerking if you had the issue)?
Didn’t have that much of an issue to begin with. Just asked them to do it as regular maintenance. My main issue is the lag when accelerating
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- #11
Greasing your u-joints and tightening the prop shaft bolts can definitely help with any clunking you may be experiencing but if you are looking to smooth out the tranny nothing will help more than the software update.
I had the TSB done (TCU software update) and it was great for like ~300 miles. But it came back. I'm thinking of resetting the TCU by removing the battery negative.
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- #13
That is the first time I have heard of the issue coming back after the software update. Is it common? What exactly are your symptoms? Maybe we can offer some advice.
I did see some similar cases here on the forum and elsewhere online. I did contact my dealership but haven't heard yet. It is similar symptoms, mainly the jerking is from 2->1 coming to a full stop, but sometimes with other shifting points too accelerating and decelarting. I did a reset last night (disconnecting the battery negative) trying to see if this will help.
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- #15
Oh man, that is disappointing to hear. Good idea getting them to note the issue. At least it is on record in case they come out with a real fix or if it turns into something more serious down the road.
I don't think greasing the prop shaft and torquing the bolts will help with that but it definitely can't hurt. As I mentioned in my original post, the factory does not put enough grease in them.
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📷 Lexus GX 550 Random Images
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My GX is scheduled to be here in a week and I'm going to pass on it
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