Odd grease fitting?

[Bob_Young]

Just had new u-joints installed on the front axles of my old F150. The shop manager said they'd each come with a grease fitting installed on one of the joint end-caps.

Crawled under to take a look and there is something there, but it's not the zerk fitting I was expecting. It looks like a screw head slotted for a flat bladed screw driver with a dimple in the center. Thought it was a plug at first, but one had grease in the slot, so I tried pushing in the dimple with a piece of wire. Felt like a small check ball in there as it gave a little like a zerk would.

Is this some kind of low-clearance grease fitting? If so, what's it called and what kind of grease gun or adapter do I need to service it?

I'm thinking about replacing them with regular zerks, if possible. There seems to be enough clearance for a small straight zerk.
Thanks.
Bob

 

[jlrsn]

I've always called them needlepoint grease fittings. Most of the time I serviced them was on Tail Rotor Driveshaft Splines and 180 degrees opposite the grease in fitting there was usually a grease escape fitting.
I also have them on my truck's front driveshaft. They work great and I've never had one fail.
You can buy an adapter that plugs into your grease gun.
Jim

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Yep, exactly what it is, you need a needle tip adapter. Go to a good auto store that carries Lincoln lubrication products and ask for one. Very common on forklifts. Truthfully, it's what I keep on my grease guns. They also work on conventional zerks. Just stick the needle tip into the ball of the grease fitting. They don't get stuck on the fitting and you don't get dirt from the fitting on your coupler so that you are injecting dirty grease into the next fitting.

 

[lightninboy]

Last year had a U-joint replaced on the 2003 F150 for the first time. This year it's time to get the oil changed, so I crawl under it to grease the zerk because a replacement U-joint typically came with a zerk, and I didn't find a zerk, so I came to the conclusion that some replacement U-joints today don't come with a zerk, which might as well be the case, because if you get your oil changed in a shop, is it going to get greased anyway?