skoobahead

My 2001 4Runner has the dreaded "clunk" in the rear after coming to a complete stop and then releasing the brakes. I have lubed the rear slip yoke with the correct type of grease but am unsure if I have pumped in enough or possibly too much.I have read that over filling it can cause the clunk to become worse. Is that true?

I pumped in about 20 pumps and the symptom is still the same. There doesn't seem to be any grease relief hole so ...How do you know if you have added the correct amont of grease?

Has anyone actually removed the driveshaft, cleaned the splines and relubed to fix this problem?

thanks,
John

M3Man02

pump it in until the grease starts to come out where the yolk slips over the shaft. It should be kinda shiny there.

2001Millrunner

what grease do you use?

Reldnew

Yeah what he said above. AND then go out and back up and stop by pulling the emergency brake a couple of times-pretty hard.

2001Millrunner

what is this supposed to do?

I think I need to get mine done as well

kevin444

Same here!

4rnr

If you over fill your shaft you will ride like a tank. I over pumped mine once (pumped untill the splines moved). My rear end rode so hard that I took off my drive shaft and scooped it out, now i only pump about ten times, never until it is full. The number of pumps will vary depending the amount of lift you have. Also you dont need to remove your drive shaft to remove the grease (I was replacing my u-joint also) just carefully remove the brass grease nipple. and some how compress your drive shaft, u may have to use your imagination

tundra8

Pump the grease in, remove the grease fitting, and jump on the rear bumper several times until excess grease stops coming out.

Reldnew

The back up and stop routine adjusts (a little) the rear brakes-in turn allowing less axle wrap or shoe sticking or whatever-it works. The guys (little Joe)over on the 4X4wire Toy page have always used this method to reduce the clunk. Works for me everytime. Clunk starts up and I pump in a couple of shots of grease and do the back up and brake thing a couple of times---clunk gong for a long time! Of course you could always adjust the brakes the proper way with a screwdriver through the backing plate if you wanted.

skoobahead

What do you mean it rode like a tank? Are you saying the clunk actually got worse? My 4Runner is stock so I have stock lift. I'm still confused as to how much grease is enough. And yes I used the recommended "Moly" grease.

Thanks,
John

4RUNR

Crack your differential

No need to take off the zerk to release grease, just stick a needle in it.
(And my slip yolk never leaked grease from the piston area, no matter how much went in)

skoobahead

So no-one knows for sure how much to lube the slip yoke? Toyota shop manual doesn't give any cautions of over servicing it. I'm just concerned after hearing that it's possible to over lube itand have problems. I'm thinking of taking the driveshaft off and cleaning the splines and doing a relube. Anyone had success doing this? The clunk-bump scenario must be fixed!

John

SLC Punk

I noticed the same thing.

I just pump a few squirts of grease in there.

MTL_4runner

Guys, this is not rocket science....

5-6 pumps on a grease gun is more than enuf to get rid of the clunk and lube the driveshaft properly while not overfilling.

Astralplane

I had rock the shaft side to side and flex the rubber/plastic end piece to get grease to release at the slip yoke.
The grease was so old it was clear.

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

You don't want to overfill the slip yoke. Too much grease cause cause it to "hydraulic" if you bottom out the shaft and it hits big glob of grease inside. What I do is to lube the u-joints and CVs first, keep track of how many pumps of th grease gun they take and give the slip yoke about the same number of pumps. It really doesn't need a lot, its not a high speed application like the u-joints. Or, better yet is to pull it apart every year or so (mark both sides so you can reassemble it in phase) and paint some grease on the splines. I use the same grease I use on the other fittings, usually moly-fortified general purpose grease.

skoobahead

Your absolutely right. This shouldn't be a big deal. In my case lubing the slip yoke has done nothing to eliminate the "bump" after braking,coming to a full stop and then releasing the brake pedal. I removed the zirk fitting and the yoke was not over full. Maybe lubing will get rid of a serious clunk but not my small one. Funny thing is... if I put the transmission in neutral before braking, brake to a full stop and then release brake pedal... there is no bump what so ever. Whatever is causing it is definitly in the loaded up drive train.

TechWrench

Do a search on the topic, there are several threads which go into a lot of detail on this problem. I have had the same problem on my '03, and a few (no more than 8-10 ) pumps of grease did the trick. But it did take a few days of driving before the grease worked in and the 'clunk' stopped. Filling the slip yoke with grease until it comes out the end cap is not, IMHO, a good idea. Doing this will fill the entire cavity and will remove the ability for the joint to contract when the suspension compresses. This will cause the 'tank' ride mentioned above.

Fun4Run

In an attempt to get rid of my 'clunk' I purchased a grease gun and some Moly blend Lithum based grease. All zerks worked and filled as expected HOWEVER as I was filling the driveline zerk I decided to stop after the drive shaft had extended by about an inch. No greace was coming out of the shaft and I was getting nervous due to the lenght the shaft extended...rightfully so! At this point I decided to drive it around the block to see if I could get some of the grease to come out of the seal. Not only did no grease come out, it seemed to 'push' my auto transmission forward causing difficult in putting the truck in the correct gear AND putting it in park was next to impossible. Knowing that this kind of pressure was being place on my trans, I figured the hydrolic effect may cause damage to other parts of the car. Without hesitation I decided to release some of the grease by depressing the ball in the zerk. The driveline appeared to go back to a settled state (less extended) and I was able to put the truck in all the correct gears with out a prob. Is the clunk still there? Well, it seems like it was fixed when it was extended (full of grease) but it is still present when I let off the pressure.

Im a little confused! I thought this a typical grease situation where you pump till it escapes the seals. An the Haynes manual only addresses this by saying 'pump grease into the zerks'!

Thoughts? Anyone?

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

See my post above about not overfilling the slip yoke. Also, have a look at this thread on the same subject:

http://www.t4x4pickup.com/dgroup/messages/4707.html