Redline Red CV Joint Grease turns brown

[Rondo]

Is that normal? One race and we had a catastrophic event leading to an encounter with a wall. On disassembling the drive shaft and CVs the grease has turned brown?? Maybe I just hadn't noticed before

Thanks for info.

[R. Pare]

No idea about it being "normal' or not, but I have one question: Before regreasing the CVs, was ALL of the previous grease removed? If not, and if the previous grease was not RedLine as well, there is the strong possibility of incompatible components of the 2 greases reacting with each other.

[Rondo]

Yes---totally removed. Thoroughly washed out with brake cleaner

No idea about it being "normal' or not, but I have one question: Before regreasing the CVs, was ALL of the previous grease removed? If not, and if the previous grease was not RedLine as well, there is the strong possibility of incompatible components of the 2 greases reacting with each other.

[KodaBear]

No idea about it being "normal' or not, but I have one question: Before regreasing the CVs, was ALL of the previous grease removed? If not, and if the previous grease was not RedLine as well, there is the strong possibility of incompatible components of the 2 greases reacting with each other.

OR, though in this case OP says all old grease was removed, it would have been more likely IF there was some remnant of other grease there (most likely near black in color) the colors simply mixed and “brown” was the resulting color. A chemical reaction would be less likely than that, or a overheating issue, or maybe that is just what happened to the dye when it reached a certain temp. I would ask the OP if he disassembled both joints to see if the other joint did the same thing before posting here? Clean the grease off and inspect the joint itself? Contact redline?

[BruceRace]

Water involved......maybe rust.....I've seen it

[Rick Kirchner]

I'm guessing fine metal particles.

I just replaced my boots and of course did a re-grease and I had quite a bit of brown grease in amongst the pink. What I noticed was much more wear than the last time I had them apart - some pretty deep grooves in the housings. As I was putting it all back together I realized I hadn't paid attention to the phasing of the joints, so I searched this site for some answers and found two threads - one where Roberts did some actual analysis, and another where Doug Carter had a vibration. The solutions were opposite - one in phase and the other out of phase.

I checked my other driveshaft, more brown grease, more wear, and the tripods were in phase, so I changed them to out of phase, They don't line up perfectly, either to the spliine or a slight twist in the shaft. Flipped the housings around and swapped them inside for outside to get me by.

So, check to see if you have abnormal wear. My theory is that I had a vibration that I couldn't feel, but was causing the wear. It had probably been 4 seasons since I had them apart - but a total of only about 13 weekends over that time.

[tstrong]

I often encounter “brown” Redline grease when repacking CV’s. Never caused a problem. Have never really thought too hard about what causes it to change color but have 10 years on the CV’s in the car now always using Redline and no issues. Todd

[alangbaker]

Reviving this thread briefly. Redline itself says:

"Will darken after high-temp use-not detrimental to performance"