My heart hurts, (and my ears) it’s so awful to see how you can treat such a great machine in this way, you guys sharpen up.
Somebody please buy them a grease gun and a tube of grease. Something tells me maintenance isn’t high on the list for any piece of equipment.
Grease that machine man !!!!!! One of the most important things you can do to maintain your heavy machinery is to grease it regularly. Grease not only extends the life of the machine, but it also prevents contamination and increases machine performance. Grease prevents joints from sticking and helps to ensure the pins and bushings don’t become worn.
Here is our detailed guide to choosing the best grease for your heavy equipment.While greasing daily is ideal, at minimum, you should be greasing every eight hours of operation. However, some lubrication points have different greasing intervals, so it’s important to refer to the OMM. Make sure to grease all the grease points around the machine.
Don’t wait until you hear a grinding noise to re-grease. It’s important that you don’t skip greasing intervals. Skipping greasing may save you money in the short term, but grinding can produce metal flakes in the bearing or bushing that can damage the machine.
Remove old grease before adding new grease. The old grease needs to be completely removed before using a new grease, because some greases are not compatible with one another due to their different thickeners.
Keep zerks clean—Dirt can become caked onto fittings that are slick with grease, so before you re-grease, make sure to clean off the zerks in order to prevent accidentally pushing dirt into the bearing. If you don’t, the dirt buildup can result in equipment failure.
Don’t overuse the grease gun on the bearings—Grease guns produce up to 15,000 psi per stroke (or shot), but a bearing lip seal can only handle up to 500 psi. If you apply, say, 20 shots of grease to a bearing, you may overfill the bearing cavity, which can force the grease outside of the seals when the equipment heats up. This can lead to contamination as well as moisture buildup.
