I bought a Lucky8 front drive shaft back in September. So far, I have about 700 miles on it. The shaft has 4 grease fittings for the U-joints and the slip joint. I have heard that you must grease the centering ball as well. Is this a necessary thing to do? If I need to do this, does the drive shaft have to be removed?
Thanks and Happy Holidays.

 

You do have to grease it but I don't know how... I had to swap mine out when the centering ball developed a bad catch and squeak. I'll watch here for the how to on greasing them. I couldn't find a fitting to grease mine...

 

Centering ball should also be greased, using a needle attachment on a grease gun.

The unfortunate part is the shaft has to be out of the car to do it.

 

How often does it have to be greased? Every oil change? (removing it every time to service sounds like a pain)

 

How would you grease the centering ball?

I've never read that before, but if it's possible, I want to go to there!

 

Drop the shaft and articulate the joint til you see a very little hole in the ball. Then pump as much grease as you can in there. I have only don't it once, and it was a monumental pain.

But it is possible. And I read how to do it on this forums. It was a few years ago, so good luck finding the thread.

 

The centering ball and all four u-joints (three front and one rear), and the two slipshaft fittings (one front and one rear) should all be greased everytime the oil is changed, which for me is every 5,000 miles with the full-syn Rotella.

Some may not know that the slipshaft fitting on the front shaft is supposed to be replaced with a flat head, hex-socket plug except for when the shaft is being greased. The head of the grease fitting could otherwise strike the crossmember if the front axle is fully articulated.

Not all centering ***** are greasable. When I had the front shaft in my truck rebuilt in 2010 I used the u-joints (Neapco 1-0005) and centering ball (Neapco 7-0081NG) recommended by long-time forum contributor Tom Rowe (aka antichrist). The "NG" in the part number stands for non-greasable. I'm confident that if Tom recommended that centering ball it'll be okay for the expected life of the truck.

Tom also consistently reminds us that when greasing u-joints we should not just give the gun a couple of pumps and call it good. We should ensure that we keep pumping until fresh grease exits all four grease caps. That means A LOT of extra grease that needs to be cleaned up when the job is done. I hate the process but I do it anyway.

 

Very interesting. Thanks!

 

Yep, thanks for posting that.

Sadly, I am confident that I will not remove my driveshaft every time I change the oil, so I am doomed.

 

Mx schedule per LR is yearly/15,000 miles lubrication and unless traversing deep water or driving regularly in a wet/corrosive environment greasing of your new driveshaft on similar schedule should work. The new shaft has zerks now for the u-joints to help prevent the failures we've all read about.

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