I have heard of the saving graces of Preventive Maintenance and want to learn more but I am from a family of mechanical pagans. I have a used copy of Herbert Nicholas "Heavy Equipment repair" on order, do you have other recommendations?
Read the operators manual for each machine
I do. Trouble is getting the rest of the operation on board. Cleaning and inspection? Promptly dealing with problems? They seem like a fantasy when Dad believes antifreeze never needs changing, hoses/belts are good till they prove otherwise, and if the hours were using just the PTO then don't change axle fluids. Scratching hours on a filter is as good as our record keeping gets. Even if it takes years to get the hours, "don't change early". Grease gets around, but with an electric gun, blownout seals are as likely as dry and I am the only one who will wipe the zerk and not just pump grunge into bearings. I've about given up on the idea of a shop and doubt that getting clean drums for fluid will get any respect past having an oily rag tossed on it.
If I didn't know better you could be working at the quarry where I work. Every fall they ask me to fill out a "Winter Work List" every year I hand it in then they give me my winter lay off slip and I come back a couple weeks before they want to start production for the year. I get to do maybe 1/2 the list for one out of a dozen machines.
Kshansen, I have the same problem with annual services. I started a binder labeled "Partial Annuals". When I go out and do regular services, I do what I have time for in the way of annual maintenance and write it down. As summers go by, annuals get done.
Years ago I had an employer ask what "Proactive Maintenance" meant, I told him it was like spraying air freshner before you sit down. He never got the joke.