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Just a quick question about lubrication of universal joints:

My '48 has 'Spicer' type 'U' joints. The shop manual recommends 140 W oil, not grease, when lubricating these 'U' joints. Since every other car I've owned used grease this recommendation to use oil is quite foreign to me. Interestingly the lubrication chart in the shop manual indicates a pressure grease gun to be used on the 'U' joints.

By the way grease in the solid phase is a concept here in Arizona. To collect the liquefying grease I have to store my grease guns in sections of 4 inch ABS drainage pipe.

I'm thinking that if I use grease I'll just decrease the maintenance interval to keep the bearings well lubed. I'll assume the slip joint is serviced with chassis grease.

Update on another post:

I'm closing in on tackling my broken driver's door latch (I'm tired of sliding across the seat to get in and out of the car). I have confirmed the theory of drilling one access hole will allow operation of the latch 'pawls'. I've gathered all of the parts needed to repair the driver's side latch, and confirmed the hole location on the passenger's side. The fabrication of a drilling jig/template was done yesterday. I last step is to convince the door panel to play nice. I'm taking a lot of photos and putting together a PowerPoint file with the important steps. I'll be sure to document the drilling template dimensions . . . assuming all of this works OK.

dp

I wonder if Packards reasoning has something to do with the tight clearances inside the caps and that grease might tend to channel or would be thrown to the ends via centrifugal force and with the higher viscosity, tend to stay there. I think it would also be hard to be sure it was distributed equally. With oil I would think it would be thin enough to flow back or redistribute when the car stopped or was going slow to at least wet the rollers periodically.

Spicer joints as used on my 34 and earlier also called for heavy oil. The oil filled a reservoir in the center and centrifugal force metered the oil to the needles at a rate determined by the integrity of the seals, thus normally giving an extended service interval. If high pressure grease equipment was used it could blow out the seals and then the joint's days were numbered. If you must use grease, feed it slowly with a hand grease gun and with minimal pressure.

I continue to use heavy oil on my 34's u-joints and king pins as Packard specified though I have changed over to chassis grease on the drag link ends.

Thanks for the input guys.

If I was to use #140 GL-5 how is this introduced into the joint reservoir?

I'm thinking of a process of cleaning the area around the 'zerk' . . . real well, remove the 'zerk' and install a pipe nipple, rotate the shaft until the nipple is pointing upward, and then fill the nipple with oil using a squeeze bottle. As long as the nipple extends above the highest bearing cup oil might be feed into all four cups and the central reservoir. Perhaps the trapped air will leak past the cup seals slowly, so maybe 'soak' time will be important. Moreover if the oil just pours out of the lower cups due to seal failure then I'll go back to thinking about grease.

Is there a 'grease gun' out there designed to pump heavy oil?

dp

If I was to use #140 GL-5 how is this introduced into the joint reservoir?

David, it's simple as with most things when you have the right equipment. Yes, there are guns designed to dispense heavy oil. The joints originally were fitted with a pipe plug to be removed when lubricating and then replaced but which by now has surely been permanently replaced by a zerk fitting. You can oil the joint thru the zerk fitting using a pressure oiler with a tip (note in picture) that inserts into the zerk and pushes the ball check aside. A couple of strokes of the trigger and your finished for another 10,000 miles. I"ve been doing the king pins and u-joints on my '34 in this manner for 50+ years; I don't ever expect to replace a king pin or u-joint on this car - they are as snug and tight as the day I bought the car.

Last time I looked (a month or so ago) those gun tips (see 2nd photo) to insert into a zerk were still available from industrial supply houses like MSC.

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