Disappearing grease in universal

Bill Goddard

Bill Goddard

Well-known member
When I put the universal in originaly, I packed the casing with grease. Now 1300 miles later I pumped 6 more shots in with my grease gun. If I do this every so often where does the old grease go? I don't see it squeese out like other joints. Bill G
 
When you pump the grease have a speedometer drive bolt removed. If the unit gets pressurized the grease is forced into the ****** or passes by a weak driveshaft seal.
 
I take off the speedometer drive. When I see grease, I stop pumping. If you pump too much it can go up the speedometer cable into the speedometer!!
 
It's going up your speedo cable. Pump enough and you will see it in your speedo window. You don't want that.
 
This apparently is fairly common. With an original style non sealed bearing, transmission oil will pass thru and mix with the u-joint grease.
Many a transmission has been filled with grease unknowingly. It could also end up in the torque tube, speedo housing or thrown out past the felts.
I now remove the speedo drive anytime I pump grease into the clam shell.
 
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My Tudor has the old u-joint grease come out the felts where the clamshell clamps around the front of the torque tube. It usually comes out slowly as the joint moves while driving, so you don't notice. In fact, if I wasn't so OCD about my stuff, and the tudor being a nearly fine point car, I would probably never notice it.

Like the guys mentioned above, if your Model A has some wear on it, when pumping grease in, the excess could work its way into the torque tube, speedometer cable, etc. If grease makes its way into the speedometer itself, you have way overdone it.

Each time I lube the chassis, I just put 2 pumps into the u-joint housing. Since it is already full and also gets some of the ****** fluid through the shafts, adding just 2 pumps of grease each time is plenty.
 
Patrick,
You make a good point. If the transmission is sealed, the u-joint doesn't get any transmission oil. I think I need to pump a small amount of gear oil into the u-joint annually to augment the grease because I did seal the transmission in my 190A.
 
Bob Bidonde said:
Patrick,
You make a good point. If the transmission is sealed, the u-joint doesn't get any transmission oil. I think I need to pump a small amount of gear oil into the u-joint annually to augment the grease because I did seal the transmission in my 190A.
Click to expand...





You're right. I mix grease with oil to make a 'goop' [ technical term] and keep it in dedicated gun. Kinda like when I was a kid we had a gun full of 140 weight for that little grease fitting on the steering boxes.
 
It would be a good idea to pull the ****** cover. You may be shocked at how much grease
is in it. Then, then next question is; “Where did all the ****** fluid go?”
 
KenBolton said:
It would be a good idea to pull the ****** cover. You may be shocked at how much grease
is in it. Then, then next question is; “Where did all the ****** fluid go?”
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to me when I last checked fluid levels. Found ****** full of grease and no sign of the displaced gear oil.:confused:


I am another one who upon advice of those on the forums packed the u joint full of grease upon assembly and later with the speedo gear off and pumped until visible. From now on, I’ll just give the u joint a pump or two once a year.
 
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Ford used gear oil conservatively mixed with soda soap for a semi-fluidic form of lubricant. In the modern era, many folks use John Deer Corn header grease that is a modern thixotropic lubricant which is also a semi-fluidic grease. It goes in and stays in better. It's also better at permeating the bushings in the U-joint while in motion. The stuff solidifies a bit after motion stops.

Regular grease stays solid and just gets pushed out of the way by centrifugal forces. The bushings don't get lubed very well with that stuff.
 
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