I wanted to make sure I'm getting all my zerk's greased. Does anyone know how many our gen 2's have? Well I'm on the subject I would also be interested in what type of grease is everyone using in thier guns, and how many pumps should I be using. I have been going every other oil change. Does this sound correct?

 

thats a variable some tie rod ends have them some don't some u joints have them some don't also service depends on how hard you use the truck. when I lived on a 5 mile dirt road I would grease 1x a week now I do it every oil change I used red extreme pressure grease on all my equipment I pump it in until the boots are full or I hear the u joints pushing air out

 

Mine's got the usual three or four on the steering stuff, plus the DSS. The 2 upper ball joints and the front driveshaft and I think there is one on the steering shaft down by the box.

I second the red anti-sling stuff for the u-joints and steering stuff, I use it in the ball joints as well.

 

I use extreme red too. I grease it every 5,000 miles. When I had my driveshaft balanced I specified u-joints with zerks so I could grease them. I had my original ball joints replaced in 2008 with MOOG ball joints, and these (unlike the originals) can be greased.

So it depends on what you've got. Just crawl under the truck and start looking around. If you think a zerk might be under that mess of grease, wipe it down and see.

 

I always used to wipe my zerks after greasing but found I had trouble with dirt/grit getting into them and I used to replace lots. Then I realized our trucks don't travel at 500MPH so grease doesn't blow all over the place, now I wipe the fitting before I grease and I get a nice clean zerk with no dirt or rust. Before or after?
There are newer synthetic greases out now with very good "pound out" properties that I think would be good for front end steering joints and U joints.

 

Yeah, it all depends on whats been replaced with what. My front axle universals never had zerks, but when i replaced em i put in greaseable ones, while my driveshafts had em, but now i have sealed ones.

Where I used to work we had some kinda grease with copper in it, that seemed like pretty good stuff, never put it in my truck though.

 

EEK! That sounds like antiseize! Don't use it as grease. I've found that stuff in the sliders in brake calipers and it was hanging up the caliper. NOT a lubricant if it's what I'm thinking.

 

If you have a '96 4wd it should have 7 zerks.
They have less and less grease fittings as the they get newer.
I grease at each oil change.
Fittings with rubber boots only get two strokes of the gun, over greasing can damage the boot.
One of the first mods I did on my '95s was to replace about half of the straight zerks with 90° zerks.
So much easier to grease.

 

Did you used to work with heavy machinery? That grease sounds like it was used for loader pins to help with pound out. The copper would help to fill the void with worn pins.

 

I worked for the city streets dept. we used it in our loader, snow plows, mowers and such. I'm sure it wasn't antiseize, it came in a normal grease cartridge. But I cant for the life of me find it anywhere online.