Drive/Propeller Shaft Lubrication

So…I am confused. My owner’s manual maintenance schedule calls for lubing the propeller shaft periodically. Also, these two sites I was using for reference show clearly where the zerks are for doing so:

But when I hoisted my car and went to find the zerks, there was nada. Here are vids of the forward/front section of driveshaft…not a zek in sight…right?

AFAIK, Toyota didn’t make any fully sealed, i.e. no-maintenance driveshaft linkages.

Thoughts? Anyone want to offer me some help sometime soon, even if just a 2nd set of eyes on, so I know I am not (not) seeing things?

According to this write-up:

“If you have a 2WD 4th gen 4Runner, your driveline is not serviceable and therefore there will be no zerk fittings for you to grease.”

Weird since, as I mentioned, my official owner’s manual maintenance schedule calls for regularly lubricating this piece of equipment.


La Fin

If the driveshaft was repaired in the past they could’ve used a part without the zerks. When I replaced the universal joints on my Tacoma the parts store had like 10 options. Some with zerks and some without.

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Another thing to keep in mind, is there can be grease points that do not look like regular Zerk fittings. They have zerks that are inverted. You don’t really think much of it, just because it doesn’t look like a regular zerk.

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Honestly, we can chalk this up to, once again, that I am an idiot. In fact the “official” maintenance schedule does indicate (parenthetically, at end so I glossed over it) that driveshaft lubrication is applicable only for 4WD models, which mine is not.

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And also the manufacturer foresees the 2wd and 4WD seeing different service use profiles. The 4WD is likely to be taken into deeper water, and more dirt roads, both is which would challenge “lifetime” sealed joints, so they elect to use serviceable joints on the 4WD, so contaminants can be flushed out with new grease.

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I know this is solved but I have some driveshafts out so here is a pic for future reference.

The centering yoke / CV yoke in some driveshafts will have an inverted zerk that requires rotating the driveshaft to find:

Left is sealed, right is greasable.

Placed loosely into a double cardan driveshaft:


It can be really hard to find the zerk.

Most modern shafts will be sealed or packed. For CV yokes you should replace with the same type (the greasable above is shorter and fits on a different size stud)

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That’s why I use the greasable. The downside is they need to be greased every 3k miles and modern vehicles oil change schedule is too long.

I guess one advantage of my crap boxes is I am under them all the time and can grease regularly