Lube job...

[Don Jordan]

We have a place here called "Jiffy Lube" - I remember when I was a kid (well I almost remember) working in a gas station. I remember "oil change and lube job" so this is a long way around the question:

has anyone ever taken a car in for a lube? I mean the kids that work there weren't even born when these cars were made. I'm not sure I really trust them. But I'm getting too old to crawl around with a hand held grease gun trying to remember all 500 fittings. I've had the car for a year (in the garage) and it had been sitting for at least 7 years before I got it. It's never been touched. Should I replace all the fittings? Is there some trick to cleaning out the the fittings?

Any recommendations?

thanks

[windsor8]

If you're talking about your old car you better get a grease gun and lube it yourself. If you're talking about your driver you just need to make sure they get all the fittings, this is from experience.

[greg g]

I took mine into Valvoline place a couple years back with the copy of the lubrications chart. Before I drove over the pit I asked if they still had a grease gun and the guy said yes. So then I asked if the greasing would be covered by the listed charge. He said yes. The fellow underneath said he was finished, when is asked how many lube points he found he said 9, I said good for a start but there are 17 more. He didn't believe me so I passed down the chart, he grumbled a bit but got the rest. As they were closing the hood I asked if they got the last lube point and they said yep!! I said there is one more but it takes a special grease. that is when I pointed ouf the water pump zerk. Needless to say they didn't have any water pump grease but the manager said they had a hand gun with trailer wheelbearing grease which said it was water resistant. so they put some in. So that one time at least I got my 32 bucks worth.

[Normspeed]

Don, I wouldn't worry about replacing or cleaning any of the fittings unless you find a broken one. The way to lube these, either by yourself or by a shop, is to raise the car, and first go around and wipe every fitting clean on the outside with a rag you intend to throw away. You'll need to swing the front wheels right and left to see and clean every fitting. Then shoot em all. Even after many years, there's nothing inside a fitting that will hurt anything. All the grit is on the outside.

[Don Coatney]

I have a good friend in Ohio who owns a quick oil change place. When I drove my car up there a couple years ago I stopped in for a oil and lube job. Like Greg I carried a lube chart in and gave it to the underneath guy. He then got them all. They did not have an oil filter so I brought one with me. Total cost for 6 quarts of oil and the lube job was seventeen bucks.

As I said my friend owns this place so the service and price I paid was the exception not the rule.

[Reg Evans]

If you come across a few lube fittings that are clogged shut with old hard grease I've found that a propane torch will melt the crud and the fitting will take new grease.

I usually go to 10 Minute Oil and Lube and ask if I can come down in the pit with the guy to show him all the fittings. So far they have let me.

[BobT-47P15]

I took the 47 Plym to a local quick lube a year or two ago. The young man

in the pit got them all as I recall. Because I asked him to count how many

he found. He was probably the exception.

[Don Jordan]

Thank you for this information.

Think what I'll do is take Norm's advice and go under the car and clean all the fittings. (I've got a chart some where - I got it off the bay for about a hundred bucks - I'm the last of the wheeler dealers)

Once it's all clean then take it to the lube place and watch. It's not that I don't trust these kids but they are probably making $7.00 an hour - and sometimes they can be sloppy.

Thanks again.

[John Mulders]

"It's not that I don't trust these kids but they are probably making $7.00 an hour - and sometimes they can be sloppy.

"

Seen people making 100$ an hour and still being sloppy...

John