Ujoints (greasable vs. nongreasable)

[straightlinespeed]

I did a quick search here but didnt find much.

I thought a good discussion on greasable vs. nongreasable ujoints would be good.

I know there are a lot of various opinions on this subject. Such as well the factory never installed them and they lasted X amount of years.Or Greasable are weaker. I would like to know your opinions on this subject.

Heres my own thought. I believe they have a place and time. For instance I built a off road jeep and every single suspension point and anything that could be greasable was. Mostly because it was going to be submerged in mud and water. Now for my Scamp I dont believe that say driveshaft ujoints have to be greasable, but I like the service factor if they are. Now this is were I get a bit iffy on the subject and not sure if its a good thing or not.

I kind of look at it this way. All of the steering linkages have grease zirks on them. They get used turning side to side. You occasionally give them a shot of grease and they seem to last a very long time. Now on a driveshaft you have your ujoint that is spinning gosh knows how much all of the time. Its always twisting and turning. Yet they originally never came with zirks. Why is that? Wouldnt you want them to get a shot of grease every now and then along with the rest of the points on the car?

So are you guys for or against greasable ujoints? What are your opinions of the pros and cons?

 

[skep419]

greasable u joints have passages for grease to enter the caps. These passages cause weakness. non greasable u joints still need to be greased. just harder to do. I have non greasable joints in my dart. Something to do when there's snow on the ground.

 

[1970Duster]

Non grease able the way to go.
Most people forget to grease the grease able anyway.

 

[KitCarlson]

I worry about the zerk messing with the balance. The seals are good so the original grease stays in there.

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

They have a place and time. On 4x4 axle u-joints, NO. On Drag cars NO. Other than that I'll use them every chance I can.

 

[70aarcuda]

Got grease able u joints on 4 race cars...never had a u joint come about...have had two dirve shaft come apart but no u joints..

and here is picture of the ripped drive shaft and the u joint still in tack....in fact it is a 7260/7290 conversion joint......as they say... A picture is worth a thousands words...



From 71 Demon...

 

[Woods74]

Badass. rayer:

 

[Supershafts]

I kind of look at it this way. All of the steering linkages have grease zirks on them. They get used turning side to side. You occasionally give them a shot of grease and they seem to last a very long time. Now on a driveshaft you have your ujoint that is spinning gosh knows how much all of the time. Its always twisting and turning. Yet they originally never came with zirks. Why is that? Wouldnt you want them to get a shot of grease every now and then along with the rest of the points on the car?

So are you guys for or against greasable ujoints? What are your opinions of the pros and cons?

Not sure what year you're talking about here as for greaseable steering joints.

There was a time when the manufacture made serviceable EVERYTHING, but people don't service anything and then ***** to the manufacture there _______ broke and it's there fault and bla bla bla, so the manufacture asked the companies making said parts for there products if there is something they can do to make parts non serviceable and just get past the warranty period.

So they came up with non serviceable parts, and that ended the added issues of customers complaints about there product from the customers fault.
Now when those parts fail during warranty periods its not a who did or didn't issue.

As for greaseable vs non greaseable, i prefer the greaseable over the non for reasons of longevity.
The non greaseable will last anywhere from as i have seen in my shop between steering and suspension and driveline 10k at the least to the highest of 200k and i can even point to which manufactures have the issue with the very low longevity issue.

If you grease the pieces that are greaseable with good grease and do it like you should or after you use the vehicle in adverse situations they will last the entire life you maintain them.
However in order to do that you need to understand when they need service and what causes the need for service.
For example you could grease serviceable parts every oil change or two, but if you use it in a hard condition then you may need to service it in the middle of a O/C interval also.

As for u-joints and the greaseable non greaseable issue with strength comparison, to be fair you need to compare the greaseable joint of the same property and process to that of a non greaseable of the same property and process.
Comparing a greaseable to a SPL design that is cold forged and saying the solid is stronger because it's solid isn't saying anything about greaseable vs solids because the SPL design is already 30% stronger by process.
All joints have a torsional limit and you'll only break it if you exceed it or you run them out of grease
I have always used greaseables except for where i knew no one was keeping up with service, and then i use non greaseable SPL, not any non greaseable joint, because they are all different and the rest aren't going to last as long.

.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Got grease able u joints on 4 race cars...never had a u joint come about...have had two dirve shaft come apart but no u joints..

and here is picture of the ripped drive shaft and the u joint still in tack....in fact it is a 7260/7290 conversion joint......as they say... A picture is worth a thousands words...



From 71 Demon...

You probably didn't think so at the time, but that's pretty cool.