I had all of my upper and lower ball joints as well as the tie rod ends and drag link replaced about 6 months ago. I want to grease everything up again. I remember when I looked under the front of my truck right after the work was done that all the zerks had a red grease on them. It looked like the wheel bearing grease that I have a canister of. We have always used lithium grease. I found a tube of marine grease in the garage. I don't know why we even have that. I guess I'll have to go to the store and get some grease anyway. Before I pick some up, I just want to know what is the best thing to use. Does anyone have any tips or recommendations?

 

I have always used Mystic JT6, for everything that is greaseable . Never had a problem.

 

The Marine Grease seems to be a better compound in my opinion. It's thicker and holds better, The regular wheel bearing grease is kind thin , and not what I reccomend for these applications.

Wipe your zerk fitting before attaching the gun. But leave the excess grease "plug" on the zerk fitting that is left from pulling the gun off. It acts like a cap , keeping the dirt from sticking directly to the fitting. You can wipe it off next time again.

 

Thanks for the input.

Is marine grease still lithium based or completely different? I don't know what Mystic JT6 is, but I will look into it. As for the marine grease, I think I agree. I haven't really used it much, but I think that it might hold up better. Since we are on the subject of grease, is wheel bearing grease the same as lithium or marine grease, or is it different?

I'll definitely wipe the zerks off before regreasing. I never thought about the grease acting like a cap to keep dirt out of the zerk. Thats a neat idea.

 

Lithium Grease is a different compond .

Adding Marine Grease to areas like the drag linksball joints, tie rods, drive shaft and universals wont be a problem, even if they were previously greased with lithium.

I would not do this with wheel bearrings (except in a pinch) , I would clean them compleatly in solvent , soap and water , and then bake them in the oven to dry them. And re-pack them by the good ol'palming method.

The lithium being a thinner compound may have a slight and highly unnoticable thinning effect to the marine grease untill it cycles it out.

But the movemet of these parts is not like a wheel bearrings .

I use nothing but marine grease on ol'Starsky , 1977 24' Chris Craft, and all 3 Tandem Trailers.

 

i always use the lucas red and tacky....

http://www.lucasoil.com/products/dis...tid=2&loc=show

 

I have been using the blue marine grease for over 30 years. Never had a problem. I do keep a tub of wheel bearring grease for ease of palm packing bearrings though. If it's a zerk, it gets the marine.

 

I buy whatever is cheap. I've gotten that red stuff before, I think it is made by Coastal. I think right now I am using some Wal-Mart brand. I don't remember the last time I changed a tie-rod end or ball joint. My Bronco has 242K on it and all the front end stuff is original. So the cheap grease works just fine, too. Keeping them greased but not putting too much in (which breaks the boots faster) is the most important thing.

Wiping the dirt off of the grease fitting so it won't go into the joint? Man, I thought I was ****...

 

Any auto parts store will have tubes of all-purpose grease. This is what I use for ball joints, u-joints, tie rod ends, etc. Anything with a zerk fitting.

White lithium grease is used for brake jobs (caliper pins, shoe resting pads, etc.)

Wheel bearing grease and only wheel bearing grease for the wheel bearings. If the all-purpose stuff is also rated to handle wheel bearings, then I'll use that there too. They develop tremendous amounts of heat, and most grease will break down at those temps. Using the wrong grease on wheel bearings can be a disaster.

Also, as for greasing them, don't use the palm method. Your palms are dirty when you're doing this, and you push dirt into the bearings that way. Also, all you can do is add a little more grease to the broken-down stuff that's in there. You can't actually replace the grease that's in there like you can with a bearing packer. I bought one at kragen for about $5. It's a little wasteful, but a little grease is worth having bearings that are packed right.

 

I've been packing bearings with the palm method since I was in high school and all the brakes were drum. I have never had a wheel bearing failure on one of my vehicles or one I worked on professionally AFAIK. I think your point about dirt on your hands is correct in theory, but like wiping off the grease fittings, it's overkill. There isn't enough dirt there to cause a problem because if there was, I should be eating bearings all over the place.

I have used bearing packers when we had them at the shops I worked at, but they were more messy than just using my hand.

There isn't any old grease left in the bearing when you go to pack if you cleaned them right.

 

About all you can accuse me of is being a little **** retentive.

 

Amsoil's wheel bearing grease is also red.

 

Thanks again for all of the input!

I just found some information online that said that moly is just lithium grease with moly additive. Apparently moly is small fine solid particles that are slippery. I don't know for sure if this is true but that is what the article said.

 

I use lucas x-tra heavy duty grease, works well for me, use it on all grease zerks on both of my truck.

nick any reason for the " red and tacky "

 

no, i just like it....