Quote Originally Posted by bearandbee View Post
I've never lubed the u joints....ill add to the list....could that be the issue?
It proved to be more of an issue than I considered at one point on the '96 Toyota Tacoma I used to have. I was feeling symptoms and hearing things that sounded serious enough that I had the Toyota dealer check things out just to be sure. I admittedly ended up feeling like something of a 4x4 newbie when they told me it was just the u-joints that needed attention, but, live and learn. There are two grease fittings on our drive shafts, one on the back u-joint (between drive shaft and rear diff), and one at the drive shaft yoke on the front.

Quote Originally Posted by bearandbee View Post
I was thinking of jacking the rear up as high as possible and then see if I could dump more fluid in.
When dealing with auto-transmissions, I've always heard that overfilling can cause issues just the same as under filling, so I'd just stick with the service manual recommendations and add fluid at the trans fill hole on the passenger side with the vehicle in the same orientation as it will be when you're driving. When it's full enough, it will start to run out of the fill hole. (And same for the rear diff fluid if that's what you were talking about). That's just me though.