Did some RE Superflex joint maintenance.

[The_Dealer]

All I can say is wow, what a pita. After having my arms for coming up on a year, and seriously neglecting them, I figured it was about time to open them up and have a look. Half the time when I would go to grease them, I was out of grease. The other half, I couldn't get them to take any grease. I'll start by saying, i wasn't having any problems, or looking for a fix. I just figured i would go in and see why they didn't want to take grease. I didn't have the special tool, so i had to make do with a punch. Also, up until now, I've never taken apart a flex joint, so i was half expecting a spring or two to come shooting out. RE actually reccomends tightening them regularly due to wear making them "sloppy". They have no set torque value, but mentioned the tool is 1/2" drive, and most use an impact(wtf?). So i assumed, as tight as i can,while still being able to tighten to a setscrew notch. All of my joints we very dry, with water and moisture in them. 3 out of 4 were barely past "hand tight", and the 4th was the same, but the threaded collar was seized in place. All of them had light burnt/score marks on the ball/race. Im guessing from lack of lube. What little grease i found, wasn't very "grease like". I used waterproof wheel bearing grease in a tube(also same grease in my gun). Used wd-40 to clean the old nastyness. Packed the grease in decently, tightened everything, and the excess seeped out. I did a few pumps with the gun as well, just to be sure. Cleaned up where it seeped out, and cleaned the arms

[Trailabite]

They don't take a lot of grease. I know on mine I had to loosen the grease fitting about a 1/4 turn to get grease to go through it.

[The_Dealer]

My phone is giving me hell. Im working on the pics now.


First one apart


Water/moisture, and lack of grease


Im still unsure what this is, it didn't have any properties that remotely resembled grease. Besides being thick.


Assembled, added a little more via grease gun(which mostly seeped out), cleaned, and ready for install


I wasn't expecting anything to be solved by this, just figured it was past due. However, considering how loose the threaded collar was, everything feels much tighter now. It seems as if some of the pothole harshness isn't as bad. I also lost some wierd noises that I never really knew what it was. Yes, I have a pair of adjustable, and pair of fixed. Also it is almost impossible to use a punch to tighten the collar without smacking your hand at least 10 times. My purpose of posting this, is to encourage people to have a look at their flex joints, especially those of use with cheaper arms(re, rc, tf, etc).I was not expecting mine to look so rough, and wasn't expecting almost no grease in them. Ive  needed to break them down and clean everything, but it kept being put off. 

[clark123456]

"Impact" is an impact gun.  Usually pneumatic, but you can get them in electric powered also.  I have a harbor freight cheap electric one that is good for me.  They can get things torque'd very tight, very easily.    They are great for loosening things too.

[The_Dealer]

Lol, I know what it is, just shocked one would recommend using it to tighten a joint with a plastic race

[clark123456]

Sorry, I didn't put the question mark with your name, so I treated you like a noob.

[ranier1315]

I don't know what RE recommends but I would check to see what the bushings are made of. Some petroleum greases can break down nylon bushings. Just a FYI.

[The_Dealer]

They don't take a lot of grease. I know on mine I had to loosen the grease fitting about a 1/4 turn to get grease to go through it.

Mine never did take any, even new. One of the adjustables took grease, but I could never get the other one too. Neither one of the fixed length ones took grease either. However, all of the bushings would take grease. After cleaning the cartridge joints, and cleaning the zerks with a paperclip, they will now take grease without a problem. Some say it's because they are "too tight" when new, but i don't know how I feel about that. The only flex joint that i have personal experience with where that could be a problem, are the rockkrawler joints. You don't even use grease, but 3in1 oil instead. I tossed up the idea of putting a removable plug in place of my zerks, and using 3in1 oil instead of grease. Imo, a lubricant like that would be more appropriate in an offroad rig. It lacks the water sealing ability that grease has, but doesn't attract the big clumps of dirt and junk like grease. An oil based lube still has the natural dirt/dust attractant, but most of the time its finer particles. Like running grease vs a product like 3in1, on an atv or dirt bike chain(just making an example. Although something like graphite powder on Heim joints.

From my research, alot of guys are having problems with keeping the cheaper joints greased. Of course when i googled, "RE joint maintenance," i found no pictures to help find out if I will have any "gotcha's" come flying out. What I did findwas, hundreds of joint failures(damage to the plastic races), due to grease not getting where it should. I've always blamed rough country's  premature joint failure(the first line, not the revised. I haven't heard much about those)
on inadequate greasing. Not all joints have problems accepting grease, but rc and re seem to be the main ones. With the super close, tight tolerances, it seems like a thinner lube would be recommended. Maybe when I upgrade to some better arms, I might clean the superflex joints out, and try a lube that would be more evenly dispersed. Sure, I'd have to disconnect the end from the axle to pull the zerk plug to lube. If the tolerances are as close as the manufacturers make out to be, there should be very minimal 3in1 escaping. Every joint I've run before was able to be pumped easily with grease, while letting the old grease and contaminants seep out. Does anyone have input or opinions of trying to use an alternative form of lube for these type joints? Im not talking wd-40, but an actually product designed as a water resistant lube for high friction. As much as we pay for parts like control arms with fancy joints and the abuse they see, someone would have came up with something that works a little better then grease. My rig has been all street driving, and has been offtoad 2 times, neither were anything remotely extreme(no mud). After going by others saying, "they don't take much grease", or "if it won't take grease, its full." So I thought I was doing pretty good with maintaining them. After going inside, I have reconsidered that. Obviously there are some issues that aren't getting attention. Sorry for the ramble and lengthy post, I'd just like to know if anyone has experimented. Is that never going to work, and im a noob? Am i not using the right NASA engineered space grease that thins and thickens depending on conditions?

[bear991]

Sometimes on our big trucks if a fitting isn't taking grease you can a small torch like you heat shrink wrap with and heat the fitting just a little and it will take grease. That grease can get hard in the fitting and stop it up

[The_Dealer]

Im more worried about the inconsistency of what little bit of grease that was in there. Some parts of the races didn't have any grease, where as some parts of it were caked with it. There were areas of the ball and race where they were completely dry. It looked like there is a possibility of grease not reaching areas where it should have been. The burnt/scores weren't much deeper then the surface of the race, while not perfect, it doesn't look like it will affect durability. You could feel small grooves where the friction started wearing the race. Might just be me getting paranoid. Is this one of the design flaws in these type joints? Could Currie have perfected even and total grease coverage in the JJ(which is why its superior to its followers/imitators?). I know they are rebuildable for fairly cheap. I will say that a good cleaning made a big improvement, and now all of the flex joints in my arms will now take grease. I can pump a whole tube in them, and the excesswill seep out between the ball and race, and other random crevices. That either means I fixed something that was wrong out of the box, I had the zerks in too far(or something was blocking the hole, or I screwed something up and didn't get them tight enough.

I actually understand them needing to be tightened every so often as things wear. But I remember barely being able to move the ball when new. Is it normal they free'd up(or "broke in")to the point where you could almost take them apart by hand? They never had any play, only the ball would flop around like a limp noodle. I know I should've saved longer and got better arms, but with the discount at work, I paid the same for 4 arms that I would've paid for 2 savvy or mc. I guess I should just be happy I decided to have a look now instead of later when they got worse. They do work, and I've had no problems besides not taking grease, a possible lube problem, and needing tightened. After baby #2 came, the jeep fund started to deplete. So if I can improve what I already have, I can spend money on upgrades besides replacing broken stuff. I can't seem to get anyone interested in talking about alternative lubes on other boards. If it doesn't list savvy in the title, doesn't contain pics of my rig flopped, or me wondering why my d 35 keeps breaking with 37's, it gets overlooked. Maybe i can spark some interest here

[The_Dealer]

I figured I'd share what I found out about these type joints. After spending over an hour talking to Blaine(very knowledgeable guy), he was able to explain to me how these joints are designed. The races are a normal wear item, I don't remember what he said they are made of. Originally designed to use no form of lubrication. The zerk fittings were installed more or less to give the buyer a sense of security. Giving them the option of grease. In fact, the grease is there to keep the joints from making noise. Most of these type joints either barely accept grease, or discharge the bulk of what u put in.  The jj, is a completely different type of joint, but we didn't go in depth with those. We primarily discussed the joints similar to mine. They are constantly being worn down with use, and need to be checked and tightened occasionally. The plastic races are what wears, and the ball doesn't. Im guessing that's why the races are made from non marring material. It was even mentioned that you could remove all of the grease, and it would work as designed, but might make noise. It was still recommended to disassemble and clean a few times a year, they will be tightened when u re-assemble them. When I asked about using grease, he said it wouldn't make a big difference other then noise.

To sum it up: Orginally designed as a wear item, with a small amount of lube for noise. Take them apart to get dirt out(minimizing wear), lube however much makes you feel comfortable, and regularly check tightness. From what I've learned, loose joints cause more damage then lack of lube. I just thought I'd share what I learned about these cartridge joints. I have a better understanding on how they work now. Enjoy

[tcdawg]

^^^^
Good stuff right there.