I grease the drive shaft every two oil changes, so every 10K miles but feel like I'm making this harder than it needs to be. It takes about two additional hours all said and done and it's just the messiest thing.

My method:
- Park on driveway, all wheels on the ground.
- Remove the most accessible nuts and bolts from either flange.
- In neutral, roll the truck forward a bit to turn the shaft to access other nuts/bolts.
- Repeat until all are removed.
- Remove drive shaft.
- Grease all fittings.
- Reinstall, reverse of removal.

In addition to the process itself taking as long as it does, goooooodnessss does grease flinging around just make a total mess of things under the truck. And I even wipe off the grease that oozes out and tidy up the drive shaft before reinstalling. Still makes a total mess.

Is there a way to grease the center ball of the double cardon joint when installed? The only reason I remove it is to access that. Maybe my specific drive shaft brand doesn't allow access but a different one might? I'd be willing to try a different brand if so just to save the time.

How do you guys keep grease from spraying everywhere? Or do you just let it fly?

Look at this mess.

 

That's more grease than I see under mine but otherwise the process is essentially the same. The common practice is to grease until it squirts out but it appears that you are "changing" your grease pretty frequently. Apart from the mess it's not doing any harm. The obvious solution would be to either do it less frequently or to simply pump it once and move on to the next one. Unlikely you're going to run it dry by adding some grease every 6 thousand miles.

 

You are doing it correctly.

 

I was hoping for an answer that would make it less of a pain lol

 

I can remove it without moving the truck/rotating the driveshaft, but otherwise similar timing. Part of the penalty of driving a long travel straight axle full time 4x4.

 

I just went to do mine yesterday but my old grease gun tanked, but it makes me feel better than you are doing every other oil change.

And the way I do mine- PITA as well- is just leave everything connected and do the dance of guessing how much I need to roll forward and backwards to get the zerks lined up. Usually I get it in 1 or 2 tries.

 

Ah, the reason I fully remove it is because I can't access the port inside the cardon joint. That's the thing that makes this all such a bear haha.

 

I’m lucky, mine are at the ends on the caps, and easy to access if you rotate the shaft around. And I know what you mean about having to remove to get in there. Bummer.