How often do you lube?

I’ve heard about jacking up the axle for greasing the kingpin, but I’m not sure if that makes a difference.

 

I've never jacked up a steer axle to grease it. As far as I'm concerned, if you've got grease coming out between the axle and the spindle, its lubed.

 

Ok, I just found that Freightliner says to not jack up the steer axle to grease the kingpins on both Detroit and Meritor axles.

 

U joints every 2 weeks and once a month or so hit the whole truck. ~1500mi per week avg

 

To each his own.

 

Some of us are here to learn.

 

@SmallPackage

I think when Freightliner says to not jack up the front axle to grease the kingpin is only talking about this particular instance and not that you cannot jack up the axle.

Now the thing about towing, to my understanding is that they don’t want tow trucks to jack up the front axle because in doing so they can damage the front bumper, especially in newer trucks where the front bumper can be very low. See Freightliner Service Bulletin in the link below.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2017/MC-10153391-9999.pdf

So I think you can still jack up the front axle from the center provided you are using the correct jack and not a bottle jack where the truck can tilt to the right or left because it’s sitting on a 1.5- inch diameter “neck.” I once tried using a bottle jack to jack up the center of a drive axle (no trailer) and it was moving to one side. You would have to be on a very flat ground to perhaps not have this problem. So now I use two bottle jacks on either side of the axle for stability and safety.

 

10-4. Bumper thing makes since. I coulda swore I saw or heard somewhere that some axles cannot except front tow. Maybe one of those late night hallucinations after a week of no sleep.lol! Thanks for the come back.

 

I lift mine. If I don’t I don’t get grease out the bottom. Some do some don’t.