September 09, 2017.
With a low mile truck that's been stored in ideal (covered, underground) conditions it's entire life, maintenance for me has been minimal. With regular oil changes (done at the dealer until 2016) and services, I've pretty much done nothing.
But the last couple years have seen more off-road use of the truck. And, knowing that more use means more maintenance, I've started learning to do things myself… because dealership maintenance is not cheap.
So, I decided that my next order of business was going to be to grease my zerks. And I decided that because it's fun to say.
When I mentioned it to Pops (by asking what grease he thought I should use, he said, "You mean you've owned the truck for 18 years and never done it before?"
"Ahh, nope, hahaha," was all I could say. (and I hoped that the dealer had done it)
At any rate, I bought my supplies on amazon and they arrived on time. Perhaps the most interesting part of this was that I didn't realize how to insert the grease tube into the gun. Had to look it up on the interwebs to figure out that it goes in the top and not the bottom. LOL.
With that figured out, the rest was relatively easy, though I still don't really know if I did it right! I scooted under the truck on my creeper and found all the zerks on the drive shaft. Cleaned them off, and squeezed in the grease. For anyone doing this who is unfamiliar - every u-joint gets enough squirts to have grease start pushing out of the joint, and the slip yoke gets about 3 pumps (nothing will squeeze out, and you don't want to over fill it).
There are 9 zerks in total:
- 1 - rear u-joint
- 1 - rear slip yoke
- 3 - cardan joint in middle of rear drive shaft
- 1 - u-joint at transfer case for rear drive shaft
- 1 - u-joint at transfer case for front drive shaft
- 1 - front slip yoke
- 1 - front u-joint
And, for the love of your drive train, grease it every time you change the engine oil. Also - rotate your tires at the same time. 
Make sure to find those hidden, dirt-covered zerks and clean them off to grease them.
Better!
Took me about 45 minutes all told, which is way too long, but of course - it was the first time. Next time will be much faster, I'm sure!
I am curious just how much grease I should put into my front shaft slip yoke? I have put about 10 pumps in there, just to the point of watching the y9ke slide out just a little bit.
I'm still getting a small "thud" up front when I stop, and then when I left off the brake pedal
Hey Evan, 2-3 pumps is all you need. You don't want to overfill the slip yokes, as doing so can cause damage if they try to compress, but the entire cavity is filled with grease, inhibiting that compression. If you've already got so much grease in there that the yoke is pushing apart, you may want to:
You won't necessarily run into issues if you don't do that, and there's less of a chance in the front, since the front diff and transfer case don't move much in relation to each other, but there's a chance, so I'd probably do it. Then, in the future, just put a few pumps in there to keep the splines on the shaft lubed.
Note: this is different than the u-joints, which you can put as much grease into as you'd like, since the extra just pushes out through the joint and then spins onto the underside of the truck (as "rust inhibitor" 😉). Hope that helps, even if it's not great news!