Lubing Your DriveShaft U-Joint

[Richard Beels <beels@technologist.com>]

Since I did mine this weekend, I thought I'd write up a how-to.

1. Go to the store and purchase a grease gun.  Buy a cheap one unless
you'll need it for something else.  You'll most likely need this for just
this one task.  If you're really cheap, pay a quickie-lube $5 to do it for
you.  It's a 30K service item.
2. When you're at the store, buy one of the needle adaptors.  Very important!
3. Go home.  Very important! ^2
4. Load the grease gun. Very important! ^3
5. Jack the car up and put jack stands in the appropriate places.  NEVER
crawl under a car that is supported only by a jack (of any type).  Jacks
are for lifting, not holding.  You really want all four wheels off the
ground, the car in neutral and the e-brake off (for the safety Nazis:
e-brake on while jacking, and then off when all tires are in air.  Make
sure to engage before lowering again.  Oh, and wipe your nose.).
6. Grab a couple paper towels, a flashlight, either a wire/tooth brush or
an awl and your grease gun.
7. Crawl underneath and locate the U-Joint.  It's a little behind where the
e-brake cables start or halfway between the diffs.  Hard to miss.
8. Rotate the driveshaft with your hand until you see the grease fitting
(aren't you glad the car is in the air?  if it wasn't you'd be crawling
out, backing up/going forward, crawling back under  until you got
lucky...).  While you're spinning the shafts, examine the U-Joint for fitness.
9. While spinning the driveshaft, do not remove the little pieces of metal
that you notice tack-welded to the shafts.  They're the balance weights.
10. Most likely, the fitting looks like a square piece of metal (smaller
than a sugar cube) because of corrosion.  Don't worry, there is a
ball-bearing check-valve and you can rub the fitting with a wire brush,
toothbrush, fingernail or poke it with an awl to clean off the 0.1mm of
surface corrosion.
11. Since the fitting opening is blocked by one of the U-Joint ears, you'll
grin to yourself as you stick the needle into the grease sitting on the
diagonal and pump like a mad monkey till the grease squirts out of the
seals at the four ends of the U-Joint.
12. Grab the paper towel and clean up the grease that's still squirting out
of the grease gun, the stuff that's all over the U-Joint and also, your
driveway.
13. If you're so inclined, look about the underneath of the car.  Examine
the CV boots for tears, the insides of wheels for grease leakage.  Any
cracks in diff housings, any trans/diff seals leaking?  Loose heat shields?
 Mufflers look ok?  Rubber donuts OK?  etc...  You'll be glad you did if
you find anything still at the minor stage.
14. Crawl out from under your car, remembering all your tools.  Throw the
paper towels away.  You do not want to stick them in a pocket and have them
go through the wash.  Trust me on this one (have not BTDT and DWTGT).
15. Lower the car (remembering to set the e-brake while lowering).  
16. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Estimated time to do: 20 minutes, including jacking and lowering the car.
5 minutes under the car unless you take the opportunity to look about.  It
took longer to write this up than it did to actually do it.


Cheers,
	Richard
	88 90Q "Hannu" - K+N, new vac hoses, still 0.0 bar....
	88 Golf GTi - PRO Rally