We bought a Cat 215 at an auction. It starts right up and purrs like a kitten- no smoke at all. But the 2 boom cyls, especially the left leak like a pig . The stick does a bit as well. Yesterday we pulled the pins and they were a dry as a popcorn f$rt . Lucky the pins and bushings weren't worn, just made them a "little" harder to pull.
Grease in a keg is ALOT cheaper, you can always fill grease guns......
I'm always amazed at the lack of attention to things as simple as greasing a machine. Before I was my own boss, the outfit I worked for supplied grease and grease guns to every operator. It was understood that after starting the machine and waiting for it to warm up, you used the supplied grease and greased your machine before getting to work. Most of the mchines were older but all of them were tight and operated smoothly.
There was an outfit around here that use to give every operator 2 tubes of grease and a grease gun at the begining of every shift. At the end of the day you should only have the grease gun left. You could tell it to by the look of all there equipment, everything look brand new.
Yes it is and also easier to dispense when you have an air operated gun and hose real.
Fortunately for Owners and Operators most new equipment either comes with as standard or as an option auto-lube systems. When I started Operating we were given a grease gun and tubes of grease and we did grease our machines every day at the end of the shift when we also fueled-up. Our machines were ready to go after warm-up each morning. There were plaques riveted to the machine which read "This machine pays your wages, if it does not work neither do you. Take care of it"
I like greasing my own machine. Then I know its done and not over done. Some machines don't need to be greases everyday unless you like getting grease allover you or all over the machine.
Grease oil and filters, are the cheapest insurance I can buy. My 22,000hr 330l is proof.
That is my philosophy as well. It's amazing how many productive hours one can get out of a machine if you just take care of it.
And when the economy was good I had the perfect set up on the job for that. We worked out of a 20ft sea crate that was on oil field skids. We had a 1000 gallon fuel tank next to it. In the box we had a generator, air compressor, air greaser, all our layout/staking and gps equipment, rigging, shovels rakes etc, and all the hand tools we needed to get us in trouble if something broke. Most of our iron was older, -5 komatsu excavators, cat H series and N series bigger tractors, newer M/N series finish tractors, G series graders, 815 and 815B packers, and terex ts14bs, or cat 627E models. For the most part, despite the high hour fleet, we had few break downs and were always productive. Generally at the end of the day the dirt moving iron would break off and head to the box. One scraper would go for the fuel tank, the other would go for grease. Those guys would switch out. Usually one guy would take off for the smooth drum to seal the site, while the other helped the rest in line for fuel. The 815 would then jump in, followed by push cats, finally the finish dozer/grader would finish out the rounds. As you got done, you helped out. Dig tracks, take care of any little items that we could do, then general bs.
That's been a re-occuring phrase here-lately. We did pretty much the same but instead of a conex box everything was mounted on a truck. I still have the truck but she's parked in the barn and just gets cranked every now and then. Every operator was responsible for fueling and greasing at the end of the day. Shoveling tracks and cleaning cabs were done on a daily basis as well. Now I do have a convenient alternative to running the service truck to the job. Mounted a small gas powered air compressor, grease keg and 2 hose reals to a heavy duty pallet. I covered the pallet with 5/8" plywood and mounted everything to it. There was enough room left to mount a small tool box for incidentals and a fire extinguisher. It slides right into the back of my pickup and makes it easy to grease if multiple pieces of iron are being worked, without having to pull the International out of the barn.