Ok, here goes, been reading about everything written on grease, why? because it seems someone greased one of my trenchers with apparently the wrong grease and now I'm replacing about 5k in bearings, not to mention labor. The kicker is, nobody seems to know what they used that "wasn't" compatible with what we normally use for grease is about the jest of it. I've learned a lot in the past week, but since nobody knows for sure what was used, everything is pure speculation as to why the major bearings failed with plenty of grease still in them.
From what anyone can recall, they might have used some John Deere grease, polyurea grease some customer had on hand when they ran out of what was on the service truck, so instead of not greasing it while working over a weekend and unable to get what we normally use, they borrowed some tubes from a customer. Which led down the path of, how old was the customers grease, turns out deere made a sheer stable grease that was compatible and also an older version that wasn't compatible with lithium grease we normally use. So just going by what we pieced together, it must have been an older version that wasn't compatible, which was never caught or even thought about and now we are trying to figure out what grease to use, so this won't happen again...........hopefully.
Now the table Nige put up is nice, seen if a few times before in my search, but there are far more grease types and additives not mentioned anywhere on the chart or most charts so to speak, which brought about what the bearing manufacturers recommended, which is two or three different types of grease on the same machine, so a call to some bearing companies to get info on what is acceptable or not, which is a complete joke at best, turns out a lot of different greases can be used in the same bearing, its more to do with what brand of grease you want to use, but don't cross contaminate the same bearing with greases that are not compatible is the jest of the whole deal.
Anyone what to shed light on what happens when you cross greases that don't mix so to speak, besides they react in a different way and its not good for bearings, like get thick or thin or don't allow rollers or balls to roll but rather skid instead, or turn solid and don't lube at all, or allow water to mix in the bearing and cause rust and a whole host of issues it seems I was never aware of until all the bearings failed at about the same time, which is very unusual even for me.
What we've been using is pretty simple, moly if it slides, glides or is a bushing of any sort, lithium grease for bearings, now most of my stuff is older, so I don't have a huge amount of specific grease like is what is required on a lot of newer equipment and according to the bearing suppliers, who's bearings I'm replacing with, I can use about anything in them as long as the grease is compatible, meaning all the bearings will get the same grease this go around, which brings up the debate of, who's grease and what kind?
Now I'm not sure but been reading and there are moly greases that can be used in bearings and don't cause issues, from what I can understand its got to do with the aluminum content of those greases and other moly's that should not be put in bearings don't have aluminum but rather other additives?
Anyone care to explain what polurea grease is, and what sheer stable means?? Can't really get anyone to pin it down in any language a human can comprehend is about the jest of it?
There are a lot of greases that fall under the category of Lithium NLGI 2 with a huge amount of different additives, many that you shouldn't mix, anyone want to narrow that down a bit, basically I've gotten lost when comparing labels and the compatibility charts then onto the specs comparisons between the greases themselves, then to locally available to buy and a steady supply on hand kind of thing, then toss in trying to make things as idiot proof as possible for everyone working for me or around here.
I used to agree with John in saying as long as someone actually greases it I'll never complain to now, we might have to revise that statement slightly.