U joint oil or grease

George/Maine

George/Maine

Well-known member
I,m replacing the trans on my 47 and some says put grease in around u joint, looks like it may oil with trans oil. Its all together now, any info.
 
I tried John Deere corn head grease for a while thinking it would be the closest to the original soda soap grease recommended. It was too thin. It all ended up at the back end of my torque tube. Now I fill the U-joint cavity with the same chassis grease used on the other 18 grease fittings under the car so that when they get greased the same can go in the U-joint grease fitting. Some say enough ****** oil leaks into there to thin the grease.
 
George/Maine said:
I,m replacing the trans on my 47 and some says put grease in around u joint, looks like it may oil with trans oil. Its all together now, any info.
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If you didn't fill the U-joint cavity with grease while assembling, shoot a half cartridge of grease in there now through the grease fitting.
 
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The bushings in the old type Ford U-joints need a lubricant that is semi-fluid or it just won't flow into them. The soda soap and gear lube mixture was not really ever properly defined by the FoMoCo vehicle operating publications like it should have been but plain soda soap is hard stuff to source now days anyway. Corn head grease is a good quality semi-fluid lubricant but it's not the only one available either. You can still get Green Velvet # 2 soda soap grease for grease cup applications if a person wants it. Lubriplate makes two different grades of semi fluid grease.

Back in the day, I'm sure the soda soap & gear lube mix also ended up in the lowest part of the system eventually. Some folks put baffles in the torque tube but it's usually for a different reason. Cars with a high rake usually have rear axle oil going up into the transmission instead of the other way around. I am also curious how the lube would get past the carrier bearing in the later torque tubes. The only thing I can figure is that the slinger inside the transmission isn't slowing the flow of transmission oil into the U-joint cavity or something of that nature. That would further dilute the corn head grease. I figure it's better for the old Ford to mark its spot that to not get good lubrication. Drain the old & re-service as per Ford operating instructions.
 
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The best lube that I have found for use in the UJ's, and steering boxes on my '35's, is John Deere Corn Head Grease. I "butter" this all over the UJ and the surrounding area before final assembly of the driveline and UJ covers. Then I pump an additional amount into the zerk fitting on one of the cover halves. This grease does an excellent job of lubing the UJ and mixes well with the small amount of transmission oil that comes through the rear trans bearing into the UJ housing. I don't care for using chassis grease in the UJ housing, because most of this grease available is high temperature and will not lube the UJ properly. As I recall Old Henry had a catastrophic UJ failure while using JDCHG because his UJ was in poor condition and he knew this but kept pushing his car to get home causing a total failure of the UJ. Any type of lube used would not have allowed that UJ to survive. The post with pictures of this can probably still be found by doing a search.

http://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=132859&highlight=joint+failure
 
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I used a locally sourced equivalent of the john deere stuff and when the axle was removed some time later the UJ was inspected and found to be in excellent condition. There is a seal at the front of the torque tube that is supposed to be orientated to keep the grease in the UJ/speedo drive area.

Mart.
 
This trans was rebuild not to long ago. I had linkage problems was grinding 1 st gear.
Thinking I was in neutral popping clutch few times ,took out 5 teeth on cluster.
They removing trans some oil came out of joint area.
When the trans was out I find the rebuilder don't put the bolt in U joint.
The main shaft was going back and forth.
There was no grease in there.
My other parts trans was loaded with grease.
Looks like some oil can work its way back.
So it calls for 2 1/2 pts and pump some grease in should be good to go.
Thanks for info
 
This is the picture JM3 5 Sedan refers to. I wasn't as surprised to see the u-joint failure as much as the miniscule amount of corn head grease left in the cavity that was totally filled with it when last assembled. Then, later found it all at the back end of the torque tube. That's why I don't use it any more.

DSCN2652_zps8d44f3c3.jpg
 
The joint must have been dry for a long time.
Did you replace the seal in the tube.
I would think the oil from trans would do better job.
I think if the trans is leaking best check trans level more often.
I can see the grease fitting on the halfs but if they wanted grease on ujoint would have put one on back mount.
I was having some vibration and hoping with the bolt in ujoint it will be ok now.
Be on road soon.
 
Like I said, there is a seal at the front of the torque tube that is supposed to keep the grease in that area.
(Referring to Old Henry's photo.)
 
You can mix chassie grease by one to three of plan engine oil .use a alan key in your drill as a mixer .This clings on and can be used in steering boxes also .and possibly early water pumps to .Ted
 
FlatheadTed said:
You can mix chassie grease by one to three of plan engine oil .use a alan key in your drill as a mixer .This clings on and can be used in steering boxes also .and possibly early water pumps to .Ted
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I use a mixture of oil and chassis grease in my trans, rears about the consistency of honey. Low melt molly chassis grease in the U joint and steering box. The heat from the exhaust manifold melts the steering grease. I live where it's hot so cold is not a problem A thick mixture of low melt grease and gear oil would be better in the early head mounted water pumps as Ted suggested. This would allow better saturation into the sintered bronze bushings as the pumps get hot. Make sure you never use high temperature grease in any of the above applications. In the 37 to 48 stock bushing type pumps it is gravity feed of oil from the timing gears that lubricate these pumps. You never hear of bushing failures in bushing pumps that have been lubricated and you never get stuck on the road as with a bad bearing. I have seen 1,000's of old bushing pump parts from pumps Skip has rebuilt and I can't remember seeing a bad bushing. The hard shafts wear before the bushings if not lubricated. I just remembered maybe 4 or 5 head mounted pumps with the bushings worn egg shaped up in the direction of the generator from the fan belt being tightened with a crow bar. I'm on another computer but in mine I have a picture of a 36 pump from a friend's fathers car. This was tightened so tight for so long the shaft wore through the bushing and into the casting. Some say this would make the seal leak but not true. The seal acts like a flex joint with the spring pushing the seal against the seat. On this particular pump the pulley was tilted so far up toward the generator the back of the pulley rubbed on the front of the pump casting. The noise, not a leak caused the pump to be replaced. G.M.
 
To add to that use a stock Ford grease gun if you can, not the Needle point type as that's a sure way to over come the pump spring seal and fill the radiator with grease. You can remove the zerk and use the needle gun Ted
 
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