Steering intermediate shaft lube procedure

carguru · January 21, 2004

MountaineerTom · January 21, 2004

That is an excelent Guide. I'll pin it to the top of the forum so all can find it easily. Would you be interested in getting it added to the Tech Article/Guide section here?

gnutruk · January 21, 2004

Carguru :

Thanks a bunch for this info.

After the warranty period is over, this will be extremely useful.

Any idea what that new black grease is? If the tube-plunger is re-useable, maybe we could just fill it up with a comparable grease, to avoid having to buy the kit each time.

Thanks again.

gnutruk

carguru · January 21, 2004

gnutruk,

I'm trying to find out the formulation of the grease right now. I had the same thought of refilling the tube with just grease. We use quite a few different greases at work. I've just sent the remants of the tube off to one of our vendors for analysis. Will keep you posted on the findings.

Tom,

Feel free to add it to the Tech articles section. I'll try to post a few more as I get into them. You may also want to add the battery backup to the guide also.

MountaineerTom · January 22, 2004

Tom,

Feel free to add it to the Tech articles section. I'll try to post a few more as I get into them. You may also want to add the battery backup to the guide also.

Cool, I'll pass it on to Mervz.

Battery backup??

I must have missed that one. What forum is it in?

carguru · January 22, 2004

It is in this one. It probably dropped down to the bottom of the page.

J-rod · January 26, 2004

Thanks for the info, carguru! I just ordered the kit from GMPartsDirect (nice job getting a pic of the kit w/ part number in the guide ) so I'll be using it soon!

Caperodder · February 20, 2004

Is it possible to drill/tap for a zirc fitting and be done with it?

carguru · February 21, 2004

Is it possible to drill/tap for a zirc fitting and be done with it?

The zerk idea will not work. Here are the reasons why:

1. In order to get the zerk high enough on the lower intermediate shaft to lube the splines in the correct location, the zerk will interfere with the boot. Removing the boot will cause splash to go into the cab.

2. Putting the zerk low enough to not cause interference will force the grease into the hollow portion of the lower intermediate shaft. This will cause the grease to leak out and dust to collect on the lower intermediate shaft and connector tube.

3. In order for the lube to work properly, the grease has to be forced all the way around the splines on both upper and lower shafts. With the zerk, you will only get one side at best.

4. The common greases available will not dampen the knocking enough. I just got the results back from our lube vendor. The grease is a heavy dampening grease with high amount of tackifiers. The tackifier keeps the grease to stay in the position where it is put. So far, this is a special formulation of grease used for dampening and it is not commonly used for lubrication. To top all of this off, it has to be compatible with the lithium based grease already in the intermediate shaft. The least expensive way to fix this is to get the kit.

Hope this helps.

Caperodder · February 21, 2004

Thanks! Very informative. I'll be doing the job on my Silverado next weekend. Would you clean the old grease off, in say kerosene, or just leave it alone and add the new grease?

Thanks again.

carguru · February 22, 2004

Don't clean off the grease that is already in there. You can clean off whatever is on the outside of the tube. The grease that comes in the kit is very thick. Think of the material in the tube as an additive more than a pure grease. Make sure that you extend the shaft out as far as it goes and squirt the grease down as far as you can into the lower shaft. The new grease and the old grease will mix together for better lube and dampening properites. As I said in the earlier post, the grease in the kit provides mostly dampening only. The grease applied originally provides much better lubrication. Good luck with the lube job.

SIERRA03SLE · March 19, 2004

I am not a frequent member here but I had my truck(03 Sierra 1500 Ext.cab, 2wd) serviced twice for this steering shaft problem and although the amount of the clunk or play was greatly reduced, it never went away. So I took it in again today and was told that GM will have a new part (they did not know exactly what it was.) for this problem in 60days. Does anyone hear or know about this?

I don't think the dealer is telling me this kind of infromation unless they have it coming from GMC.

Thanks,

falconjms · July 14, 2004

Does anyone know if this lube kit is still the only fix for this problem. I had this done by my dealership (free) about a year ago and now the problem is back. I can buy the kit and do it again but I don't like the thought of having to do this every year.

Blue-2001-Z71 · July 15, 2004

I just lubed mine and it seems to have done the trick (for now at least, as stated above). I hear if it comes back that the shaft might need to be replaced due to excess wear in the splies. True or false?

Rapiti · August 7, 2004

Is it possible to drill/tap for a zirc fitting and be done with it?

The zerk idea will not work. Here are the reasons why:

1. In order to get the zerk high enough on the lower intermediate shaft to lube the splines in the correct location, the zerk will interfere with the boot. Removing the boot will cause splash to go into the cab.

2. Putting the zerk low enough to not cause interference will force the grease into the hollow portion of the lower intermediate shaft. This will cause the grease to leak out and dust to collect on the lower intermediate shaft and connector tube.

3. In order for the lube to work properly, the grease has to be forced all the way around the splines on both upper and lower shafts. With the zerk, you will only get one side at best.

4. The common greases available will not dampen the knocking enough. I just got the results back from our lube vendor. The grease is a heavy dampening grease with high amount of tackifiers. The tackifier keeps the grease to stay in the position where it is put. So far, this is a special formulation of grease used for dampening and it is not commonly used for lubrication. To top all of this off, it has to be compatible with the lithium based grease already in the intermediate shaft. The least expensive way to fix this is to get the kit.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting this Carguru! How often is this band-aid fix required? I am getting ready for round II at 35000 miles (still under warranty.) Surely GM is not shipping new trucks with this "amazing" steering link design? Maybe so...