My wife and I went for a drive last Sunday. She hadn’t put her earplugs in yet while driving down the street. I always get mine in quickly because I don’t want to ruin my already bad hearing. She says, “what’s that scraping sound.” I take out my plugs and can hear a little bit of it before it stops. I think brake pads. We drive about 40 miles. Coming close to home I take out my plugs and at slow speeds I can hear a light scraping. I try the brakes and the noise seems to go away.
That night at home I put the car up on the lift and check it out. The brake pads are in great shape. The emergency pads are good. I hand turn the tires and watch the all the u-joints rotate. I can’t make the scraping noise happen.
Last night after thinking about it all week I check it out again. There it is, the u-joint closest to the trans has a split rubber cover.
I take the drive shaft out and take the u-joint apart. The needle bearings have turned to dust. I am so amazed it held together.
On close inspection I notice there is no grease in the cup or on the bearings or in the hole of the of the cross. The other 3 posts on the cross are well greased. I ran a wire through the cross in both directions and there is no blockage.
I had all new u-joints installed 19,800 miles ago, in September 2003. I can’t believe the u-joint lasted this long without grease.
I change the
oil and lube all the fittings every 3000 miles. That u-joint is the hardest to reach and I skip it every other time. I stop lubing when I see one of the cups oozing grease.
I’m thinking that rubber cover was so tight it wouldn’t let air release when greasing, thus not allowing the grease to flow to the cup. Should I burp each rubber cover with a miniature screwdriver? I don’t want to ruin the rubber cover. I should also remove my earplugs once and a while to hear what’s going on.