missing grease fitting

[albsvx]

I was just under my YJ greasing all my grease fittings, and the one on the expansion joint of my rear driveshaft was missing.

I tried putting a new one in, but the hole is all stretched out, and it's not in there good enough to hold and grease.

anybody got any genius ideas for me?  I'm thinking jb-weld or epoxy-putty.  Anything else?

I was missing 3 other grease fittings, but those all screwed back in just fine.

Heh, guess maybe I should stop hitting things with my grease fittings.

[rocket]

heli-coil.  they work well, even in soft metals (aluminium).

[albsvx]

the material is really thin (like sheetmetal), and there isn't a lot of space "behind" it ... I'm not sure I'd have any luck drilling and tapping without making things much worse.

[Cheek-Bone]

they sell fittings with different size bigger diameter where the threads are, I had the same problem on the front d.s. on the blue one. NAPA

[albsvx]

yeah, I may try that first, I'm just not sure if it's opened big enough to get the next size up in there, and I don't really think I want to be drilling in there (probably not good to be getting metal shavings in a space that's normally greased.)

[Cheek-Bone]

I used RTV to hold the smaller one in until I got one that fit, and I could have probably kept it like that because even after 2 months it was still there when I replaced it.

[Rebell Bull]

rtv or lots of plumber tape

[albsvx]

hrm, you think rtv and/or tape is better than jb-weld?

[Axle]

jb weld... imo

[albsvx]

I think I'm gonna run an pick up one of the larger thread fittings first, and see if I can get it to go, it not, I'm thinking jb-weld

[HOT-ROD]

well there is a metal filler in an RTV type squeese bottle. (you can sand it and paint it FYI) i used it to fill the holes in the winshield frame the i used for the snorkel. it is really holding on to the screws even after i smashed it(snorkel) into a tree. i also used it to fill a small hole in the bumper and cant even tell.

[Cheek-Bone]

I would have used jbweld but at the time all I had was rtv and it held it until I replaced it. But yeah jb weld would definatley hold better.

[albsvx]

all fixed.

I ended up carefully drilling it out, large enough to fit the next biggest thread sized fitting (which it seems, is QUITE a bit larger)
then, I still didn't like the way it wasn't sitting quite flush, so I used the tube style metal fill putty (probably the same stuff HOT-ROD was talking about.  I'd never seen that before, but it's AWESOME) ... waiting for it to fully cure (2 hours) now before I hit it again with the grease gun, but I'm sure it's going to be fine, until the next time I try to grind it off on a rock.

[reg]

maybe we should work on a line of grease fitting skid plates??! 

[Seabee_BUC]

all fixed.

I ended up carefully drilling it out, large enough to fit the next biggest thread sized fitting (which it seems, is QUITE a bit larger)
then, I still didn't like the way it wasn't sitting quite flush, so I used the tube style metal fill putty (probably the same stuff HOT-ROD was talking about.  I'd never seen that before, but it's AWESOME) ... waiting for it to fully cure (2 hours) now before I hit it again with the grease gun, but I'm sure it's going to be fine, until the next time I try to grind it off on a rock.

Its on your control arm right? Is it possible to take the control arm off and rotate it 180deg so the fitting is out of danger??