I've had my Discovery for less than a week. When I bought it, I decided that I wanted to try to do as much of the service myself as possible. Baby steps here, fellas. Up until now, the most work I've done on an engine is changing the filter, spark plug, and oil in my lawn mower.

I know that the car just had an oil change immediately before I bought it (local independent Rover shop showed up on the CarFax - - I called and confirmed), so I moved on to the next easiest thing on my list. Bought a grease gun and decided to grease the U-joints on the front drive shaft. They were dry and crusty, so I wanted to get to it sooner than later.

The first thing someone should tell you if you've never done this before; it's really easy to get the grease gun fitting on to the zerk to inject the grease. No so easy to get the fitting back off. I don't have a lift, so I'm working with minimal clearance, and I'm pulling and pulling and the damned thing won't come off. Finally, I get it off and chalk it up to the fitting being brand new. So, I move on to the next zerk. Same thing, only this time, it really doesn't want to come off. And now it's all greasy, so grip is gone. It's 40 degrees in my garage but I'm sweating. I spent 10 minutes just trying to get it off (felt like an hour).

I'm not going to lie. The first thought that went through my mind was that my wife was going to laugh at me for trying to play mechanic. I couldn't have that. No, sir.

Eventually, I got smart and used a set of needle nose pliers as a lever to pry the grease gun fitting off the zerk. Funny how all that pulling did nothing, but a really gentle push from the other direction got it to pop off very easily. Using my new-found method, the third U-joint on the front and the rear joint and shaft took no time flat.

I guess next up is a Techron fuel system treatment. After that, I think I need to start flushing and bleeding pretty much everything, which will take a little more nerve.

I feel like I've taken the first steps toward bonding with my truck. Thanks for all of the collected knowledge here, guys.

 

Good on you for making the effort to learn new things.
If a grease gun it hard to get off the zerk, just lean it at an angle and sort of prty it off, you won't hurt anything. That's assuming you have room of course.

When you grease the u-joints you want new grease to be coming out from around all 4 seals on each u-joint. In addition to getting grease in to lube them, the purpose is to also flush out old grease/dirt/moisture. You can't do that if new grease doesn't come from around all the seals. Don't worry that you will "blow the seal" as some people claim. U-joint seals are designed to allow you to grease them properly.

If you have no service history on the front propshaft (or it hasn't been rebuilt in the past year) you should get it rebuilt.
These guys are near you and do good work if you don't want to do it yourself.
http://www.driveshaftservices.com/location.asp

If you want to try it yourself (good excuse to buy tools LOL) then search here for posts by me with "propshaft" in them, I just posted links to two decent tutorials and some additional information. Once it's rebuilt and serviced on schedule, it will last many miles.

BTW, thanks for putting the year of your Disco in your sig.

 

Put the wrench down and pick up a book. otherwise it will get very expensive.

 

download the RAVE workshop manual lin is in some peoples signatures or on our club site www.nelrc.com

 

Thanks for the reply, AC.

I had read here that you should keep pumping until the grease oozes out from all 4 ends of the spider, but the guy at the auto part store gave me the same warning you just debunked. I kind of went somewhere in between by pumping until I saw grease coming out of any of the ends (not all 4). Seems that it like to find the path of least resistance to get out. So, this blown seal thing is a non-issue? Thanks for setting me straight.

 

Yes, non-issue, spread by ignorance. The seals are designed to allow purging. If one does happen to pop off (I've never seen it happen) just take your finger and push it back on.

You must have new grease from around all 4 seals. If not, whichever one you don't get it from is not getting flushed and lubed.

If you're not getting grease out of one of the seals, tap the opposite side of the yoke with a hammer, that will shift the u-joint in the other direction and hopefully allow grease to come out the recalcitrant seal.
See this post for a photo of what I mean.
https://landroverforums.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=29302

 

I never thought of this until my Rover mechanic friend told me:

It's a good idea to use Marine Grease (especially if off roading) because it won't mix with water.

With the help of said friend, we installed an engine into my 1995 Discovery this past weekend. That is the absolute furthest I have ever been into a car, and it's definitely a learning experience.

Since I got almost all of the bugs worked out (save for the clutch) I should be bringing her home tonight.

Good on you for working on your Rover. It's a bonding experience for sure, and it keeps the green stuff where it belongs: in your wallet.

 

Buy yourself a good set of auto ramps, make sure they are rated 4,000 lbs or higher, you want steel ones not plastic.
Then when you change the oil and grease the driveshafts run both passenger side wheels onto the ramps.
This will get the driveshafts higher and easier to reach as well as put the drain plug facing down towards your oil drain pan.

 

I've been using Castrol Pyroplex Blue for years for that very reason. It's designed for heavy equipment, graders, bulldozers, loaders and the like. It gets tackier when exposed to moisture.