I was just reading the brochure on the new Komatsu PC130 and it says that grease intervals are 500hrs! How can they manage to do that? Does anybody on the forum do this?
That has to be for parts that dont move much or the turntable. I know my volvo 210 excavator has a sticker on the turntable that says grease every 250 hrs. I still have to squirt and few shots in it every other greasing. I can't help it, I'm a walking grease gun:beatsme
Well I read a CAT manual for a 950G and it said to grease every 50 hours! I think I would be fired if I only greased once a week.
http://www.equipmentcentral.com/north_america/data/new_equipment/PC130_8_SS_071108.pdf Page 8
That's how you take out the seal on the bearing...seen it done many times. Brian
i agree but its so hard to not grease a nipple, i am the same, every nipple gets a shot even if its only a tiny shot lol
I suppose they've improved things but maybe Komatsu might be a little optimistic. Except for the turntable our 150-5 was supposed to be greased every other week for everything and once a week on the bucket pins. When it was new I had to try a bunch of different greases before it would go a full day without the main bucket pin complaining. We grease once a week and the bucket pins get done every day with the main pin getting between 40 and eighty shots of grease a day. All the pins are still in good shape at 13000 hours except we are on the third set of main bucket pin and bushings.
Hit the nail right on the head.....bearings failure is usually a direct result of over greasing
I worked for five years at a Komatsu dealership and chased more pins and bushings than I care to remember. I've come to this conclusion. GREASE IS CHEAP, PARTS ARE EXPENSIVE. Grease seals are put in with the lips pointed to the outside of the joint. Excess grease goes through the lips into the sides of the joint and out. The grease that spills outside the joint seals the dirt out and carries any dirt out when new grease is added. Seals that are jacked out of place are almost always, in my experience, because someone installed the seal backwards. The other reason is that there are no side shims installed and the joint slaps side to side loosening the seal's press fit. I've always held to greasing implement joints subject to a high range of motion, booms and buckets, every eight hours or less. Circle bearings should be done about every 40 hours but only a couple of pumps per fitting. Rotate the house a couple of times and then go to work. Manufacturers make a higher percentage of profit per unit on parts than they do machines. So now they tell the public they can go longer between greasing, and then sell more parts down the road.
John is right about this. The seals are made to keep dirt out. With a new pin and bushings it takes about 40 pumps a day to keep the cavity filled - it holds a lot of grease. As it wears it takes more and more until we grease it twice a day then change pins and bushings. The side slop makes things a lot worse. I wish I could find a decent source of the right size hardened shims. I had some thick ones made but they didn't last long.
I was in a rush last post so I never finished......I grease bucket pins every 8 or less. If I am digging in water I will grease every four. The rest of the pins I grease every day with the exception of the turn table and I grease that every 40+-. I always grease at the end of the day when every thing is warm and I grease with the machine in different positions every time. You will never convince me that you can over grease pins but I have been told ( by a bearing manufacturer) that you can over grease bearings and it will lead to premature failure. Dont ask me why......I honestly cant remember.
I am the overgreasing bandit in my company. I had a long discussion yesterday with another operator who believes I grease entirely too much. On my 450 I kill a tube sometimes a little more everyday on her. Those pins take a lot of grease, my pins never complain and my machine runs tight and smooth at 10500hrs. The operator who thinks I grease too much runs one of our new 350D LC Deere's and he greases every 3-4 days depending on when things start squeeking. He is a believer that when the pin starts to squeek thats when you grease it. He said I "waste" at least 50 tubs a year of grease in his book. In reality I waste 100 tubes a year in his book. I asked him whats cheaper... 100 tubes of grease at a dollar a piece, or 1 pin or bushing? I am starting to think grease guns carry the plague. I was at the fuel tank the other day and figured I would grab one of the 8 grease guns on the rack.... all empty because no one likes changing cartidges. I should have known better. I have 4 of my own on the machine, 3 with winter grease, and 1 with regular grease for my tracks.
Let me know if you ever need a job around NYC.
Whats winter grease? We've always greased with the same grease all year around..
I am the same way, I have this disorder, were I feel I must grease ALOT! Its a sickness. I feel this sense of well being when grease is coming out of a pin, and that I know its lubed up.
Hi Guys. I'm new here and would just like to say this website rocks! I have been reading on it for a couple of months now and have found a ton of useful information. About the greasing, where I work we like to grease any machine before it is going to be used for the day and sometimes bucket pins more.:usa
I ALWAYS grease...... id have to say that I am consistently one of the best one when it comes to greasing.... no matter where I work, Im always the grease nut. and I cant find work
Hey guys just putting my two cents in, has anyone looked into Auto Greasing, you get the right amount of grease at the right time. It will grease every 20 mins if you want. Comming from Cat and Volvo from the factory and could be some others, www.cplsystems.com www.groeneveldusa.com let me know
You still HAVE TO check and make sure the are taking grease. It tends to give you a fals sense of security. But yeah they are nice.
There's nothing like the sound of a grease fart in the morning.{grease popping through the joint}.I never heard of over greasing being bad either.I'm always proactive--no squeaky pins ever if I could help it.
From what I have heard and seen you can tell just by looking at a pin if it is taking grease or not, with the Automatic greaser it is wet around the flange, and a pin that does not take grease is all dry. Plus with some of the systems today the rest of the machine will still get grease, unlike some where if one point is plugged the rest of the system shuts down. Also does it not give the operator more time to look at other things on the machine that may need service instead of wasting his time greasing. You are right they are nice
Yeah its hard to beat a good lincoln Auto lub system. Never had much luck with the others. All of our New gear has a lincoln system put on it before its delivered to site, and its with a reservoir that will hold an entire pail. But im with all of you, id sooner spend an extra 300 a year on grease than 300 on one pin plus the labour and downtime to swap it. As for winter grease, its not as thick as coventional grease so it remains more fluid in the colder temperatures. I wouldnt think too many low elevation places south of say the latitude of new york state would need it.
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No I am not in need of a job.... these guys have decided to keep me busy since I seem to take care of my equipment. Our winter grease is thin stuff... and it's red. It's nice stuff. I keep a box of it and my gun in behind the cab so the engine heat keeps it really nice and thin.... so when I grease its a real nice easy pump for me. Gotta keep my manual labour to a minimum. As for grease farts... I usually hear mine about 5 minutes after the fart in the cab..... Usually best to let the cab air out anyways.
A buck a tube? That's why you have to grease so often. Buy some better quality grease. The stuff we use runs around $3.50 tube. We've tried cheaper grease and it's unreal how much better the good grease performs. I try to keep the good stuff hidden in the shop or stashed in my truck and give the truckers the crap grease to smear on their fifth wheels.
on our newholland e135 the manual says grease every 100 hours.thats far to long.i usually grease every 3rd day.some times more often.all depends on the work your doing.theres men i know and u'd think they were abused with a grease gun when they were little because there scared to use them now.
intervals some of the new jcb tracked machines are 1000 hr intervals on boombase and boom to dipper pins
Sounds to me like manufacterers are tring to sell more equipment It's like some of the new cars comming out: I think a couple of BMW's ur not supposed to change the oil for something like 10,000 miles Not in my 50K investment
All our big mining excavators which are working all day every day are fitted with auto lube systems which cycle about every 5 minutes. If they don't cycle for some reason an alarm goes off. Yeah grease is cheap. It makes the machine look untidy but its a good indicator that the pins are getting grease. The turn table always has a lot of grease hanging out of it, which we look for on our daily inspection and the only turntable bearing that I know of that failed had 40,000 hrs on it, of course others have been replaced during major overhauls.
are renault van is 18,000 mile oil change interval.i change it every ten.
We buy grease in bulk.... 3.50$ tubes of grease make their way down to a buck a tube when your buying 5000 tubes at a time.
Over greasing bearings can be bad, thats what I was always taught! but Its good to give a squirt or two of grease to heavy use areas every day, if i could only practice what I preach!
Even "sealed" pins and bushings are designed to let grease out. It helps push the dirt out that's trying to get in and flushes the contaminated grease out. It's not like a roller bearing that is supposed to be air tight. If not overdone the nasty little mess of grease is a good thing.
http://www.mrotoday.com/mro/archives/MRO Coach/Geyer/GeyerON06.htm Check this out near the bottom there is a section on over greasing. we will have to agree to disagree on this one!
I did read the section about over greasing. I don't disagree at all. It just doesn't apply to the pins and bushing on equipment. Disagreement is okay. Makes an interesting discussion.
with regards to pins and bushes I'm from the school of " the more the merrier" I agree with you totally on that!
When I got in this game a lubrication engineer was the guy who could change the cartridge in the gun without getting the grease all over himself. In this whole discussion we are talking about different applications. An excavator joint with a slow rotational speed and large surface area to bare against is a very different animal compaired to a roller bearing in a high speed moderate to low load situation. Sealed roller bearings don't let the grease out causing more resistance to rotation. The resistance to rotation will cause higher temperatures in the bearing with resulting higher pressures. In this application then, too much grease is not good. We are talking sleeve bearings and pins for heavy equipment. Komatsu has been spouting that junk about extended greasing intervals since I worked for the dealer in the nineties and we told our customers back then they were only trying to increase their parts sales. We saw first hand the results of extended intervals and always recommended daily intervals for greasing implement joints. Back then Komatsu did not guarantee how long the parts in those joints would last using their recommended interval and would not repair a failure outside of the initial warranty period based on it while I worked for that particular dealer back then. If they make the claim now it needs to be in writing and made unconditional to be anything more than sales fluff.