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
- Thread starter nartmot
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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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