I looked for a grease cup or zerk on the front U joints but can't find anything to grease. I thought there was a place for one of those grease points on the U joint for the drive line?

 

here ya go...
https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...d.php?t=159035

 

a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

The joint in the pic above is the only one that can be greased, unless you change the joints to aftermarket greasable ones.

 

that point shown in the picture there is the ball and socket bearing only. I just pulled the front shaft out of my 04 with 90k miles on it and the ball and socket are full of grease and in perfect shape. (The 04 has no way to grease that socket). That particular bearing gets very little movement. The u-joints themselves still are not greasable. I just put all new GREASABLE u-joints in (male zerks) and a new ball and socket for poops and giggles.

So if you guys are looking at the u-joint itself for a zerk...you are wasting your time. It seems that DC sometime in 05 put a female zerk for the socket...the only bearing that doesn't need regular greasing.

Oh, I would also like 5 minutes alone with the son of a (you know what) that designed the front yoke bolts as T40 with red locktite. What kind of an idiot uses torx in a spot like that? Sometimes I wonder if these morons design the "little things" to be so annoying as to force the average jerk to bring it into the inept stooges that work in the dealerships.

 

Seconded on the front yoke bolts with red loctite

 

by the way, you can grease that ball and socket on any year truck with the sharp needle and punch through the rubber flange that covers the ball and socket. The same way you grease "non greasable" ball joints. Why DC put that female zerk there is beyond me.

 

Well I crawled under the truck and with a little telescoping mirror I could see that grease point. Put the mirror down and with a pistol grip gun and flex hose I could get the point in there. Gave it a few pumps and all is good.

Thanks for the info!

 

do you put the grease in all 4 little flange spots?

 

no you can't grease a non-greasable u-joint ( I think that's what you are refering to) What I'm refering to is the ball and socket bearing in the Cardan drive or "h-bar". These front drive shafts have 3 different u-joints AND they have a ball and socket bearing between the two rear u-joints. The ball and socket is what is being greased in that photo.....not the u-joints. do a search for "cardan" and that should yield a thread on pavementsucks.com There is a how-to on these cardan set ups, and they even show you how to remove the ball and socket. pretty standard on 4x4's

 

here are two different threads showing the double cardan set up

http://www.rblewis.net/personal/bronco/driveshaft/

http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech/doublecardan.php

 

This is for greasing the front drive shaft joint. Not sure if anyone has posted this.

Basically, you take a grease zerk, knock out the check ball screw it into some small fnpt nipple, put another grease zerk in the other end of the nipple (leave the check ball in place or not) and voila! You might have to do some minor grinding mods to make it past the u-joint if it's too fat.

You hook it up to your grease gun, press the modified zerk into the socket, press like a bugger and carefully pump in some grease. Yes, grease still leaks out at the socket but it does get into the joint.

It's not perfect but it's an alternative to using the needle as you have a larger area to seal with using the zerk.

 

Tje cardan joiunt really rarely needs grease the u joints need 2 b replaced with greasable ones.

 

I guess that's why the manual says this only needs to be greased every-other oil change eh.
The 1st time I greased this joint I got lucky (once I actually located it) but the second time I had a heck of a time getting the angle just right. A pistol grip gun would be ideal yes ... haha ... thanks.

 

just replaced ujoints on front drive shaft of my 98 cherokee with 205,000mi has the same style of drive shaft as my 05 dodge only without a fitting to grease the ball in the cardan joint.after almost ten years and 200K there was still plenty of grease in the socket and no noticable wear.I would hazard to guess that if you greased the dodge once every year or two you would never have a problem with the cardan joint(excluding u-joints of course)