I have a set of two piece rod ends w/o a teflon liner (Progress brand) and many of them have started clunking really early in their lives. So I've been reasearching which grease to use with them and my reasearch shows that I want a calcium complex grease but does anyone know where to buy it? I've also purchased some rod end seals to attempt to help keep the grease in the bearing and to keep the dirt and other junk out. Now, I haven't been able to find a place to buy calcium complex grease locally, does anyone know where they would have it locally?

Or should I just use another grease? It just seems like all the places that advertise online say to use calcium complex, but I did also see some DIYers use caned white lithium but I think I'd rather stay away from that as these will see quite a bit of water as a rod end for the rear sway bar endlink.

 

Don't get all worked up over the chemistry. There are several excellent water-resistant greases out there. You want something that is Marine Grade or similar. You can search for this at Valvoline's site and other oil company websites. I also use a product from a company in Texas that seems to work just fine in this type of application-MagnaLube by Neely. The seals you mention can be found in Speedway Illustrated-dirt trackers use them a lot.

 

You'll want to double check this but I seem to remember one manufacturer of Teflon rod ends recommending that they be run dry...

K

 

The thing is that Progress went cheap with their rod ends and they are not teflon lined. Instead they're just econo-rods that are just two piece with no teflon sleeve. Thus the idea that I have is to run them with some kind of grease. The style of rod end that came with the kit are shown here

http://www.valvoline.com/carca...ber=5

I've also already purchased these rod end seals to attempt to keep the grease in, and the dirt out. Though after messing around with it I can tell dirt will still get in. I'm currently waiting on Progress to send some additional items that they left out of the kit.

http://sealsit.com/images/picres.gif

I looked at Valvoline's web site and only see some multi-purpose grease. Any recommendations?

http://www.valvoline.com/pages...cid=8

The only ones that state water repellent is the general, and the synthetic blend. But then of course there's CRC which have a uncanny amout of greases that I can waste hours reading. I'm just trying to find something that I can find locally instead of ordering stuff online and will work well.

 

My Progress rod ends started clunking very early on in their life also. I thought about greasing them up, but the bearing had actually developed some play so I didnt think it would completely resolve the problem. So I replaced mine with Aurora Teflon coated rod ends. They werent too bad at $21 a piece. http://www.bakerprecision.com/auror6.htm

 

OOPS. My bad. I read "with teflon..."

K