Lubricating your heavy machinery is crucial for ensuring that it is ready to be used every single day. Before you start the engine and get to work, you need to conduct a thorough daily inspection to make sure that your equipment is oiled and greased properly. Greasing is really important for protecting your purchase and ensuring that it has a long lifespan.
Why it is important to properly lubricate the machine?
In order to avoid metal-on-metal friction among parts, equipment greasing is required. Your crane, backhoe, dozer, or any other machine’s movable components, joints, and linkages are primarily made to move on a coating of lubricant. Similar to how the engine of your equipment needs oil for the same reason, rotating components also need grease to perform efficiently and prevent heating and friction.
Rotating components that are not kept sufficiently greased will eventually dry up, and that will result in component degradation pretty fast. If companies put their equipment through high-cycle procedures with huge loads, the risk of quick degradation is considerably greater. The best approach to make sure that construction machinery operates at peak efficiency and has a long operational life is to follow the manufacturer’s recommended lubrication intervals. Additionally, it ensures that you do not experience expensive downtime that can be avoided.
How to grease your machine properly?
Usually, the grease points on all machinery are apparent, although there might be some that are hidden. To ensure that you are aware of all the marks and that you have covered them all during your regular grease rounds, it is crucial to consult the operating manual. If the guide does not have an image showing the grease spots, check the machine itself for a drawing, it is often on the inside of the door, or see if it is available on the internet.
Cleaning all lubricant joints is necessary prior to manually greasing the bearings and pinpoints. If you do not do that, and directly pump the grease in, the grime that lies atop the fittings would be sucked into the joint. The rubbing of the lubricant and grime mixture on the metal parts will result in excessive and premature deterioration. The following are procedures that you should follow while lubricating heavy machinery:
- Pick the lubricant that the manufacturer advises.
- Find all of the friction points.
- To create a habit and ensure that you never forget to lubricate them, it is a good practice to do it in an identical sequence daily.
- Check grease points to make sure no grease nipples are lost or broken.
- To stop dirt and dust from getting into the joints, clean all lubrication points.
Whenever you are using new lubricant, make sure to completely clean out every bit of old grease because some greases are incompatible with one another. Pump with a grease nozzle attached till you see grease coming out of the joint.
Importance of choosing the right lubricant
Always use the lubricant that the manufacturer has recommended for your particular equipment. While it may be tempting to repurpose the same grease for all of your machines, doing so will be detrimental to both you and your company. Instead, choose a grease that is appropriate for each machine and the environment it operates. In addition, based on their intended use and operating temperatures, various components of your equipment may need a different kind of grease.