Rear U Joint

[Lucian08]

After getting under the VX to grease the zerk fittings on the rear drive shaft I found that the fitting on the rear joint connected to the diff is bent. I want to pick up a new joint to put in there, but I don't see anything on rockauto, indy4x, or Oreilly; I do see some for the trooper though. Is this another one of those parts that is the same? Has anyone replaced this piece before on the VX? Or any car?

[tom4bren]

A quick check at Advanced Auto Parts shows that the Trooper uses the same U-Joint as the VehiCross.

P/N 2-0317

What part of your U-Joint is bent? I've never heard of the cross bending. U-Joints are typically replaced because the needle bearings inside the cups on the end of the cross get worn out.

[Mile High VX]

From his post yesterday:

Has it really been a month? Gawd I suck. Anywho, I had checked under the VX a few weeks ago and didn't see any fittings, but after checking the VX manual it agreed that they should be there (never should've doubted!). I FINALLY looked again last night and there they were; covered in crud but def there. Greased em until grease started to come out as suggested. Unfortunately the one on the rear joint has been dented so I'm gonna look for a replacement, but took it for a test drive and the noise is 95% gone! It was too easy! I'm gonna grease everything!

Seems to be that the zerk is bent/dented and he can't grease it...

[Lucian08]

That's right, just the zerk fitting is bent. And now that I say it again, I guess I can probably try and remove the fitting and just replace it. No Advanced Auto near me, but good to confirm that it's the same part!

[LittleBeast]

Any driveline shop should be able to source a U-Joint that will work for you. I just took mine off and took it to a driveline shop and they had one in there shop with the same specs.

[Lucian08]

Well I tried to remove just the zerk fitting; no dice. It basically fell apart as soon as I touched it. So now I'm back to finding the joint; not sure how things work in Texas LittleBeast, but a Minneapolis city boy like me doesn't know any driveline shops. A quick google search says there's a shop a bit north that may offer the service I need; I'll give them a call Monday and if it doesn't work out then I'll just order the trooper part and quit my whining. Thanks!

[ahdoman]

I think some zerk fittings are threaded in like a bolt. You might check that first before undergoing the replacement.

Q; I've looked through the service manual and can't find a page that shows all of the lube points. Does one exist? I've lubed all of the zerk fittings I could find but I want to make sure I'm not missing any. The ones I found were a bit dry and I'd like to add that to my maintenance routine before Moab.