Chassis Lubrication Question???

[jkexplorer]

My owner's manual and the Haynes Repair Manual talk about chassis lubrication which includes lubrication of the tie rods, steering linkage, ball joints, etc. Haynes Manual further specifies that these components have either grease fittings or plugs, the latter would have to be replaced with fittings to accomplish the lubrication. The problem is that I don't see fittings and I don't see plugs on my 2000 Explorer XLT 4WD. Am I missing something or is my vintage year car lubricated for "life" at the factory? I'd appreciate it if some one can shed some light on this dilemma. If the car does need to be lubricated what grease do you use?

Thank you...

 

[TheFox88]

Am I missing something or is my vintage year car lubricated for "life" at the factory? QUOTE]
Bingo! I think you hit it right on the nose. Check with a dealer just to make sure though.

 

[IZwack]

yeah there are no grease fittings on stock parts..

now most of thes joints you mentioned have a rubber (or other syhtentic material) "boot".. some people use a needle injector hooked up to a grease gun and puncture this boot to inject more grease.. afterwards, the boot is then re-sealed with either RTV, silicone, or some other flexible sealant. this is one option if the joints havent sour yet.

depending on what the mileages are on ur current joints, you may want to start looking at replacing ur current joints with ones that are regreasable... i.e. joints with grease fittings - which you can then hook up to a grease gun to regrease. ball joints arent too expensive and you can change them yourself (you'll have to get a ball joint remover/press - which is a giant C-clamp.. or use a very large hammer to drive the old ones out and punch the new ones in - careful with this hammer procedure tho)..

as for the outter-tie rods, you can replace them yourself but you'll need to get an alignment afterwards- unless you can accurately measure two reference points (say the distance from one knuckle to another) and use that number as a guide to see how far the new outter rods should be screwed into the inner rods ... of course you'd have to change the rods one at a time to make sure the other knuckle doesnt move.. as for the inner tie rods, this is a litlte more involved as they are sitting inside the front cross member, but JEFE on this board has testified that this can be done at home with no specialized tool (or at least not that i can remember) ..

if you need any more info, this board has many many threads on these topics, please search around and im sure you'll find most of what youre looking for

 

[jkexplorer]

The car has about 53K miles on it now, so hopefully I am not at a stage yet where any rebuilding is necessary. I am curious what Ford's thinking is for this design without "grease accessibility". Is the original grease supposed to last the life of the car? If I were to take it to a dealer would they use the approach you suggested with a needle injector or do nothing?

Prior to posting the thread I did a search on this board for "chassis lube" and found very little information. I tried several other search options with no results. I'll have to try it again, if as you say there are many threads on this subject.

Thanks for the info!

 

[jkexplorer]

Does anyone know where I can get the needle injector that is mentioned in post #3 for performing chassis lube. Is it simply an attachment to a regular grease gun or is it a self contained unit?

Thank you,

 

[jkexplorer]

Got all the info I need. Didn't realize I could buy it at Kragen Auto Parts.