Cat 312B SN9GR00432 After five days of digging and moving -a lot of dirt- in some fairly steep areas I noticed a lot of grease coming out of the turntable. Should I be concerned about this ? Is it something that needs immediate attention ?
hi, it could be your swivel thats leaking into your swing gear case. check the inspection cover between the boom hydraulic hoses. that should give you an indacation if there is hydraulic oil in there mixed with the grease
This is the inspection cover..........
Thanks, Opened inspection plate. Grease is about one inch deep and evenly distributed. Gears are well covered in grease. How thick and deep should the grease be ?
The grease level should be JUST touching the bottom of the rotating swing pinion and makes "swirls" in it as the upper frame rotates. If the grease level is anywhere above the bottom of the pinion it's too high. Post a photo.
Let me clarify what I meant to say. The gears are not -covered up in grease- but have grease on them. It's pretty dark in there with the black grease. I'll see what I can do to get a good light source and take a photo today. Also I don't seem to be getting email notifications of responses even though I have things set up for such.
Here's some photos.
That grease looks way too deep. It should only be JUST up to the level of the bottom of the swing pinion and the ring gear. Somewhere approximately where the red line is, just high enough so that the pinion skims across the top of it while the upper frame is rotating.
Should I remove some of the grease ? How do I determine what caused too much grease ? Swivel leak as David P suggested ?
I would recommend that. I don't think it was a swing gearbox (not swivel) leak otherwise the grease in the swing gear cavity would be almost liquid because of contamination with hydraulic oil. I think it is more likely that someone overfilled it at a previous PM. If the grease depth in the bottom of the swing gear cavity is correct it should have a "swirl" pattern on the surface a bit like what your wife would see if she whipped cream up in a food mixer bowl. Something like this.........
Now you're making me hungry . . . . . . I was wondering how the swivel could leak into the area. I suspected the grease might have been overfilled and I have never checked the level. The work I did in the last week involved -far more- rotating than I've ever done since owning the 312B. I'm now going to pick some strawberries and put some whipped cream on them to eat. Thank you for all of your time and knowledge. I consider this issue closed.
It seems people have a real tendency to overgrease (or more likely grease too frequently) the turntable. Several of our machines have shown some egress of grease just as you show in your original photos. I have inspected & just carried on…. We did have an old Hitachi EX 270 roadbuilder that had a failed swing gearbox. A large amount of oil was present in this case. Good luck!