Good front end rebuild kit with no grease fittings?

[bennylava]

1987 Silverado 5.7L 2wd. I'm looking for a good quality complete front suspension/steering rebuild kit, that does not use grease fittings. Like the truck would have had from the factory. Can anyone recommend a good kit to replace all the wear parts?

My main question asked, I realize I probably need to say this stuff:

I know most people love their grease fittings. I do not. I feel I do enough maintenance without all that. They also always seem to end up caked in gunk and quite nasty. The quality parts last 50-60k miles (or more) without grease fittings, and I'm fine with that. Especially since I might put 10k miles on the truck, per year. I'm not interested in why parts that you can add grease to are better. I'm just looking for a quality kit that is up to factory oem standards, that does not use grease zerks or whatever. Thanks in advance!

[mongocanfly]

not sure if I follow your train of thought but if you don't like greasing a truck then just don't do it...wont matter if the fittings are there or not

[sweetk30]

go moog and then get a pack of grease fitting caps and put them in after you grease them after install .

and rockauto for great prices on the parts .

[bennylava]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

not sure if I follow your train of thought but if you don't like greasing a truck then just don't do it...wont matter if the fittings are there or not

Everybody will tell ya you're supposed to do it every oil change.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by bennylava

Everybody will tell ya you're supposed to do it every oil change.

Guess I'm not everybody. I do it every few years, when I remember. But quality and no fittings doesn't go together, anyone worth a dam will have them there because they are better if you use them. If you don't, they are no different then ones without fittings.

[jkk]

No grease fittings sell more parts

[bennylava]

Educational thread for me, the replies are much appreciated.

So now more questions:

What about blasting off all the old grease/gunk from the parts that have grease fittings? When you/they pump in some new grease, often times some of the old grease comes out the top. On my truck, it seems this has been done quite a few times, on all the greaseable parts. Now you've got years of caked gunk built up. So blasting off all that old gunk with a power washer - Good idea? Or bad idea? Maybe water gets between the rubber and gets down in the little ball and socket somehow.

[D13]

For our vehicles, no grease parts are usually short lived. That's fine if your truck is a 3000 mile a year street cruiser. More miles, more load, get the good stuff (MOOG) and use good grease.
The proper way to grease something with seals is to grease until the seal just swells. Forcing grease out past the seals unseats the lips and makes a mess, and a route for water intrusion. Unfortunately in todays world of powered grease guns and untrained operators it is a reality.

Better than power washing is to use a dull tool to remove the worst of the mess, then apply a good cleaner (Simple green etc), let soak a bit, then scrub and floow with a light power wash. Of course, if you are planning to replace the parts and just want the surrounding areas clean, blast away. You will still get better results if you take the big chunks off first.

[cadillac_al]

On my hot rods I will wipe the grease off after I grease it. There will be no need to pressure wash anything if you wipe the grease off after greasing.

My 76 K10 has 185k miles on the original ball joints and U-joints with no grease fittings. I used to think they were inferior without grease fittings but I guess they were perfectly fine for most people. If I mud bogged the truck like my K20 the ball joints wouldn't have lasted this long. If you run through water and mud you need to grease all the joints to get the water and mud out. Running down the highway or dirt roads or snow isn't too hard on all the joints and the original grease seems to stay put.

[bennylava]

Originally Posted by D13

The proper way to grease something with seals is to grease until the seal just swells. Forcing grease out past the seals unseats the lips and makes a mess, and a route for water intrusion. Unfortunately in todays world of powered grease guns and untrained operators it is a reality.

Sounds good. I'll make sure I do that when I first put the new moog parts on.

However, when I do finally need to grease it again someday, where will the old grease go? I can only assume the old grease will be forced out past the seals and unseat the lips and make a mess, just as you said. I'm find with cleaning it off, but it seems like in the end you're still going to get that route for water intrusion. Just trying to learn the best ways of doing these things.

[hatzie]

Take a rag and wipe it off. That's why we call em grease rags.
I usually leave some grease on the Zerks til it's time to service the joints... just not a huge blob. It keeps the rust away.