Every 3,000 miles, you should put some grease on the steering joints to keep them turning smoothly and to prevent rust. Every 6,000 miles, you should also lube up the suspension ball joints to jeep them operating smoothly and at peak efficiency. A Jeep Wrangler is unlike a typical modern passenger car in that the joints can still be manually greased. Mechanical skill is not needed to do this yourself. Not at all. You only need a tube of grease, a grease gun, and a Jeep. That's it.

Greasing Your Jeep

This is the easiest job you can possibly perform on your Jeep. It's deady easy, brainless, and almost impossible to screw up. So, if you were looking for something easy to start with, this is it. Let's lube the steering components so that they don't rust and steering is accurate, easy, and noiseless.

Required Tools

You will need a tube of grease, a grease gun, and a flexible nozzle for the gun. All of this stuff is at Autozone or any other type of auto parts store. None of it is expensive. I think I paid $20 for the equipment to do 3 years worth of lubes.

You can see here that my grease gun is customized. I got rid of the solid nozzle because I couldn't get around corners with it. Get a flexible nozzle, and yours will work much better.

Also, I picked up a tube of slightly more expensive, but very, very reliable and high quality synthetic red grease by Mobil 1. Get a brand of grease that has this label on the side. Be careful, because the tubes of grease at the store are often jumbled, so you will need this exact label written down to compare, because there are other types that have similar labels that look almost exactly the same, and they are not appropriate for use on your Jeep.

Step By Step Guide

1. Load up the grease gun. You do this by unscrewing the end cap on the grease gun, pulling the handle on the grease gun all the way back and cocking it, pulling the cap off of the tube of grease, and sliding the tube into the grease gun. Put the cap back on, and then uncock the spring powered handle so that it puts pressure on the grease. Locked and loaded!

2. Make sure your Jeep is in Park and the parking brake is set firmly. The engine should be off. Even doing stupid stuff like this, you don't want to have the embarrassment of being run over in your own garage because you were hasty or careless.

3. Locate the seven greaseable zerk fittings on your Jeep's front end. A stock Jeep has seven places where steering components are bolted together that need to be greased. There is nothing to grease in the back of the Jeep, if it is stock. Some guys have lots of aftermarket parts they put on that are greaseable like anti-sway bark links, drive shafts, and adjustable bars of all kinds. They end up greasing lots of places on their Jeeps. You only need to worry about seven.

A zerk fitting is a little metallic nipple that sits on top of a cup with a rubber container for holding grease. You just shove the grease gun nozzle over the fitting, and squeeze the handle to apply grease.

Two of the zerk fittings sit on top of the ball joints right at the mechanism that the wheel is on. These fittings are the suspension ball joints that you do every 6,000 miles.

The other five of the fittings are located on the bottom of the wheel joints where the tie rod and drag links connect to the wheel mounts. Also, there are three more where the drag link and the tie rod meet, and also where the track bar and the drag link mount to the frame and to the pitman arm.

Here, I'll show you.

That's the driver's side front wheel on my Jeep as seen from under the front bumper. There's the ball joint zerk fitting up there, and down lower is one of the steering tie rod ends.

Here's the other front wheel. You can see the fitting on the top of the ball joint, and the other at the end of the tie rod. You can also see the joint where the drag link and the tie rod meet. That's five of them.

There are the last two. That's where the track bar meets the frame, and the drag link meets the pitman arm. That's seven, and that's all there are on a stock Jeep.

Count yourself lucky. Other vehicles have greaseable boots that have to be removed, and they do not hold grease very well, plus they require more knowledge to lubricate. The Jeep is easy to maintain, and this job is one that take five minutes, no sweat, and anyone can do.

4. If this is the every 3,000 mile service, then grease everything but the two that sit on top of the ball joints. If this is the 6,000 mile service, grease them all.

To grease them put the grease gun nozzle over the zerk fitting until it clicks. It will firmly attach, so you will know when it is on there. Squeeze the trigger slowly, and as soon as the rubber bladder that the grease is going into expands, stop putting in grease. You're done.

There are two schools of thought on this. Some say to be careful and to not squirt too much grease or it will squirt out of the rubber bladder and not only make a mess, but the bladder is never the same again and won't store grease well. Others say that you have not put in enough grease if it doesn't come out of the other end of the bladder.

I prefer to try to keep the seals intact, but I've had grease come out of the bottom of two of mine, and nothing bad seems to have happened. Looking at this pics I just took, I need to mop up the extra grease, because I think I put too much in at some point. Also, I adjusted my suspension in the front, and while I was pushing the axle up and down, grease was pressed out of the seals by flexing of the axle.

Usually one pull of the grease gun trigger is sufficient to grease a fitting.

And you are done!

Oh no! What Did I Do Wrong?!?

Grease is getting on the inside of my wheel. Like in my photo above? Too much grease in the fitting. Get a cloth, remove the front wheels, and wipe off the excess that is piling up at the bottom of the rubber bladder, and wipe off the components and you should be fine.

My brakes don't work so good. Getting grease on your rotors is a very, very bad thing. Remove wheels, remove rotors, use brake cleaner and a clean cloth to remove all grease, replace rotors, replace calipers, and restore wheels and you should be fine, unless you polluted your brake pads. In that case, a front end brake pad replacement is now in order as well. Be careful with that grease!

I was submerged under water. Grease the fittings. Grease protects them, but water breaks it down a little, and they might need more.

Feedback

Hey, Just wanted to says thanks for your site. I have a 2003 Jeep Rubicon, I got it when it had 4,000 miles and always used the Mobil 1,and now im up to 32,00, I never knew where to grease fittings so I would pay walmart to grease them since I change my own oil. Anyway, your site showed me just how easy the 7 spots to grease were so I bought the needed supplies and I Finally located Mobil 1 grease at auto zone. No one else carries it. Anyway, Thanks for the pics of exactly where the fittings were and how to do the task. Mike