Where I now live in Slovenia there are no local independent local Land Rover specialists and the main dealer is over 65 miles away in the capital city. There is another main dealer over the border in Italy, about 45 miles away. I use a very good local garage for services and repairs. This all usually works fine with me purchasing of original Land Rover parts from England for the garage to fit and supplying photocopies of my workshop manual pages where required. Unfortunately for the last service a new mechanic did the work on my Discovery 2, TD5. I supplied oil filters etc as usual and a grease nipple for the front prop shaft sliding joint. This guy misunderstood the photocopied instructions and left the grease nipple in place instead of removing it after greasing and screwing the blanking plug back in. I was worried that the grease nipple would connect with nearby metal work and cause damage to the prop shaft etc. I had a look underneath today and the grease nipple is perfectly OK, shining brightly in the light of my inspection lamp and well away from banging against anything when the prop shaft is turning. Why does the grease nipple need to be removed after a maintenance service and could there be a problem leaving it in place. The blanking plug appears to have been lost by the garage and none of the online spares specialists seem to list this small part, only the grease nipples. If it is necessary to replace the blanking plug because it seems a hell of an expense to replace the whole prop shaft and couplings using decent quality OEM parts (not Crappart) just because of one little Allen grub screw.

 

No reason to replace if it's the one I am thinking you are talking about, leave the zerk and Rover on

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

the only reasons i can think of to replace the zerk after greasing would be that it can either potentially imbalance the shaft, or -- if it's at a point that articulates -- that it could interfere at extreme angles. but if you haven't noticed any vibration and you aren't trying to rock crawl, it's probably fine to leave it in place.