Gents, my 2001 Disco 2 has been chirping and has a small vibration, so I knew the issue was probably on the front shaft. I checked yesterday and the joint close to the transfer case does have a TINY play. Other than that it looks good. I had this shaft replace about 12 years ago btw. What I forgot to check is if it has the zerks for greasing. Assuming it does (since it's not the original part). my question is: is there any chance that it's just a case of greasing it? Or am I screwed and need to replace it? Also, what kind of grease should I use? Thanks!

 

It might be ok for a while by greasing, but if you can feel the play it is probably worn out. You need to remove the driveshaft every oil change and grease it, most of the time the zerks are not accessible without removing the shaft. At this point I would recommend removing it, check the play, make a decision. Go from there.

 

Chirping is metal on metal. You can grease it (assuming you have zirks) and good chance the sound will go away but play you can feel is a bad sign.

 

Thanks Extinct and Ahab, I'll probably replace it to be on the safe side. I usually buy my parts at Atlantic British but, thanks to the forum I found Lucky8, which has way better pricing. Made my decision easier! Thank you both!

 

The cheap Lucky8 front drive shaft is junk. I have had two of them fail in under a year. Others have reported similar issues.

I use Lucky8 for many parts and have had good experiences buying from them. But I don't recommend getting the cheap front driveshaft from them.

 

I just replaced the "cheap" shaft from Lucky8 2 days ago, it was 3 years old and I had been greasing it every other oil change or so but one of the bearings was completely dry. Right now Lucky8 claims that for some manufacturing reason all the inexpensive shafts they have in stock do not have grease fittings on them so I would call and double check. I bought the "driveshaft tool" which makes removal super easy and got a bag of 3/8 fine threaded nylocks from Fastenal so I'll be removing it from now on to grease it to make sure I do a through job.

 

I have a GBR front drive shaft with 70k miles on it. I grease every 5k miles. I would highly recommend them.

 

lucky 8 is junk

 

Me too. I just got it but chose theirs because of the great reviews and customer service.

 

If you have a good shaft, you might consider just putting a set of Moog greasable joints in it.