Jeep Articles / Technical and Installation (Plews and Edelmann LubriMatic 05-019)

Plews and Edelmann LubriMatic 05-019

Article written by Moab Man

Date Added: 12/05/2008

We're going to save you a whole bunch of money! Kind of... eventually, way down the road. But we will save you money on your driveshaft investment, and you can even thank us later... eventually, way down the road.

Purchasing an after-market driveshaft is not cheap; no matter what the killer deal you might have got from Tom Wood, or any other manufacturer. And directly proportional to that cost is your desire to take care of it, so you don?t have to spend that money again. So you probably grease the u-joints and the slip-sleeve, but all the while are neglecting the most expensive part of the driveshaft -- the CV-joint.

What? Grease the CV-joint? You may have noticed that little inverted cone thing on the body of the CV-joint with a small bearing in the bottom. This is the grease fitting for the CV-joint.

Installation

1. Confirm your CV driveshaft has the pictured inverted cone grease fitting. If you don't have the fitting... sorry. Next time buy a Tom Wood?s driveshaft.

2. Start by removing the driveshaft.

After disconnecting your driveshaft from the axle, DO NOT allow your driveshaft to just drop. The falling of the driveshaft, steep angle of the joint, and sudden stop when it hits the limit of the CV-joint range can cause the CV-joint to pop out of its socket. Don't ask us how we know... but we do. Sorry about that shaft Tom.

3. Rotate the CV joint around until you have a clear shot at the grease fitting. We laid our driveshaft across a 4x4 piece of wood to allow the CV room to move.

4. Remove the traditional grease zerk fitting from your grease gun and replace it with your Plews LubriMatic Needle Nose Dispenser fitting.

5. Insert the Plews grease dispenser into the inverted cone fitting and give it a good number of pumps until you have flushed out the old grease and contaminants - cycle the CV-joint around to help disperse the grease.

We had a number of years on this shaft, so we repeated step 5 one more time.

6. Wipe off any extra grease, and reinstall the driveshaft. (The differential was a convenient place to cleanse our fingers of the old CV grease at the time.)

Rather than removing the shaft as we did for this article, you can perform this maintenance with the shaft still on the Jeep. Rotate the CV until the grease fitting is facing down, unbolt the axle end of the driveshaft and raise it high, now grease the CV joint.

Final Thoughts

When we removed our driveshaft the CV-joint moved through its range of motion relatively well... we thought. After greasing the joint it was obvious how much stiction we had previously from both the socket being a little dry and the accumulated contaminants.

Logic dictates that our CV's life has been reduced from a lack of fresh lubrication and flushing of the old, dirty grease. We would suspect the life of our CV joint could have been extended quite substantially had we maintained it from the beginning. So get this fitting and maintain your CV driveshaft from the beginning, and just as we promised, we?ll save you money.

Where to Purchase
If your experience is anything like ours, you can't find the appropriate grease gun fitting to lubricate this joint/fitting. Locally we searched every major automotive chain, independent, and mechanical store with virtually no luck. In desperation, we even tried a needle grease fitting we found for puncturing seals and lubricating bearings... but we were suspect as to how much good we were actually doing. Which eventually brought us full circle and back to Tom Wood.

Don't you really hate it when you look last where you should have looked first?

We asked Tom for confirmation that this little inverted cone is indeed a grease fitting for maintaining the CV and that a tool does actually exist to lubricate the joint. With the myth being confirmed that such a mythical tool does indeed exist, we begged Tom to share the secret of where we could find the golden fitting that seemed to be more elusive than a 5 legged Jackalope (not to be confused with the common 4 legged Montana Jackalope).

Apparently, Tom had a whole basket of these loosely guarded golden fittings, and happily shared his treasure. With proof in hand, we resumed our search for somebody... anybody, that sells this part. Finally, we found Plews & Edelmann.

The manufacturer, Plews & Edelmann, does not sell to the public. We did find outlets that sell to stores where you could buy a whole box of like 10 of these... but we only needed one. However, we did not give up the search and eventually found ONE automotive outlet that sells them, Woody's Auto Supply. Not believing we actually found the elusive part, we spent fifteen minutes on the phone cross-referencing catalogs to make sure it was the right part and Woody's was even kind enough to put a picture of the part on their website for our readers.

For their assistance, we hereby designate Woody's Auto Supply as our official source for the the Plews & Edelmann LubriMatic 05-019 Needle Nose Dispenser. Ok, that really doesn't mean anything, but now you know where you can get the fitting. So not only are we saving you money, but also untold amounts of time. Again you can thank us? later.

Vendor Response

Direct link to this product:

www.woodys-auto-supply.com/automotive-tools.asp?prod=PLW-05-019

Purchase / Vendor Info

Vendor Name:	Woody's Auto Supply
Address:	WOODYS-AUTO-SUPPLY.COM 441 State Road-Unit #10 Vineyard Haven, MA 02568, MA 02568
Phone:	(508) 696-5326
Contact Person:	Jack
E-Mail Address:
Website:	http://www.woodys-auto-supply.com

Our Thank You's!

We would like to thank Woody's Auto Supply for assisting us in verifying they had the right part we were looking for and posting the picture so that our readers know they have found the elusive 5 legged Jackalope... uhhhh... we mean the right grease fitting