GSGALLANT

When I was lubing the driveshaft on my new-to-me '93 4Runner, I found a bad zerk on the front driveshaft double carden joint (rear-most fitting on the front driveshaft). So I take it out and see that it's about a 30 degree angle fitting with a 6mm thread. Fair enough... that's probably a dealer item, but I can get away with a 45 degree 6mm thread bought from anywhere, right? Wrong! I took a closer look at the threads and saw that they were fine thread M6x0.75 to be exact.

Ok, so now it's really a dealer item. I called the dealer, he checked the part number for the zerk $9.50. I said no thanks (somebody else must sell these somewhere). I started making calls (about 20 different places) and nobody sells fine thread metric zerks (a lot of them don't even sell coarse thread metric zerks).

So I broke down and decided to call the dealer and spend $10 for a grease fitting, but then he checks and says that they don't have any in stock, and that they can't get any because their warehouse doesn't stock them.

So I thought I'd pump the joint full of grease with the bad fitting (it allows grease in, but doesn't have the ball to block the hole to stop the grease from coming back out), remove the fitting, and replace it with a short M6x0.75 bolt and save the fitting until next time I have to grease it, but nobody sells fine thread metric bolts in this city!

So to make a long story longer, for those of you that have replaced a double carden joint zerk, were you able to buy a fine thread metric replacement?

My next thought is just to drill it out a size larger and tap it to some thread that's a bit more standard (like a 1/4inx28). Thoughts, or advice?

mt_goat

Maybe try a junk yard.

GSGALLANT

Good idea. I had thought about it, though, and they won't sell just the zerk. They want to keep it with the driveshaft.

celica

sounds like the dealer wants to Zerk you. Try another dealer, they can usually get those from other warehouses or the states

trythis

mcmaster-carr
mcmaster.com If they don't have it they don't exixt. Fast as heck shipping and fun easy to search website.

GSGALLANT

Thanks for the website. I'll check it out.

GSGALLANT

Alright... here's an update in case anybody else has to replace one of these. I still wasn't able to find any 6mm x 0.75, so I went out and bought a brass 1/4" - 28 NF, 45 degree fitting. I didn't retap the hole, since the fitting was brass, I figured that the fitting would conform to the existing threads. And sure enough, it did. It went in well, to the same depth as the original one, and I was able to snug it up very well.

I pumped some grease into the u-joint, and was able to flush out what little bit of old grease was in there before, with no leakage through the threads of the fitting. Cost of fitting was $0.45 instead of $10 at the dealer - if the dealer could even have gotten them.