Central lube systems..........YEAH!......... or "UGH?"

I am on the UGH side of this one.
There is only 2 types I have seen, and I don't consider 1 of them a "system" at all.
1. AN auto system, like a Lincoln.
2. Lube lines run all over the machine to a central point that has 20 zerts that you still have to put a grease gun on.

#2 is what I have a customer wanting on a new machine I am quoting from Pettibone. Every machine I have ever been around with this set up has always been a huge mess. If you cant see what your greasing most keep putting grease in it until they see a blob of it fall...…..and usually it is somewhere I will have to be working later. Sure, it makes it easier on the operator, but isn't climbing all over a machine to grease it an great way to keep in shape? LOL

Can anyone bring me to the YEAH side of this argument?

Unless your customer goes for a full autolube system (Option #1) then my vote would be have nothing at all. When you pump grease into the fittings at centralised points you have no idea whether or not the grease is actually going where it's supposed to go. 90% of the time even if you see grease drop on the ground you still have no idea if it's coming from the right place or simply spewing out from a line that's rubbed through or split.

Nige said:

Unless your customer goes for a full autolube system (Option #1) then my vote would be have nothing at all. When you pump grease into the fittings at centralised points you have no idea whether or not the grease is actually going where it's supposed to go. 90% of the time even if you see grease drop on the ground you still have no idea if it's coming from the right place or simply spewing out from a line that's rubbed through or split.

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Ughs 2 Yeahs 0

The problem of grease not actually getting to where it is needed was a major problem with some of our Cat loaders, mainly the 980 G's They had nice easy to access fittings for the boom and tilt cylinders near the center pins of the loader.

Problem was the way Cat routed the hoses they would get rubbed through from the boom going up and down all day. What make it worse is the hoses would leak right near the boom or tilt cylinder pins so they looked like they were getting grease!

Some operators were good and would shoot over to the shop at the first sign of a squeak, other were either had the music on radio up too loud of just to lazy to drive over to the shop. Thing is they did not even have to get out of the seat, just come to shop and beep the horn and I did all the work!

Greasing manually has secondary benefit in that a general inspection of the machine is done at the same time like looking for loose or missing bolts, finding cracks etc.

Tones said:

Greasing manually has secondary benefit in that a general inspection of the machine is done at the same time like looking for loose or missing bolts, finding cracks etc.

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I'm taking this as an UGH. Ughs 3 Yeahs 0 Ken ?

Take a harvester boom it’s pretty much a must for some type of centralized greasing points with no where to stand or even walk on well greasing. Myself I’ve never had an auto lube system but do prefer the manual centralized setup with weekly or twice a month inspect as well as boom cleaning of needles limbs ect.

Most of our northern trucks run an auto lube system. Excellent if you have drivers in the truck, all they need to worry about is greasing the u joints.
However the lines can still get tore off or break.
If i had complete idiots running a unit absolutely I would get an auto lube. It also cuts out alot of the work if you have multuple units and its hard to get regular inspections on them.
If there was a good operator on it, nothing beats walking around the unit greasing and inspecting it.

pushbroom said:

If i had complete idiots running a unit absolutely I would get an auto lube. It also cuts out alot of the work if you have multuple units and its hard to get regular inspections on them.
If there was a good operator on it, nothing beats walking around the unit greasing and inspecting it.

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I guess I'm a bit on the fence on this one.

I do like the idea of getting up close and personal with the parts needing greased but an automatic system does reduce a lot of work.

The problem is the way the automatic systems are marketed to too many bosses. They are given the impression that it's a simple thing, install and for get it and never have to do anything more!

The thing is neither method works if you don't have good people. I hated it when management decided to have operators handle the greasing on the mobile equipment that did not have the autolube systems.

Way too many guys would not want to get dirty so they just ignored the fittings that were hard to reach. Then there were the ones where the fittings were bad and the grease just puked out around the fitting with none going where it was needed. Not to mention the fittings that because they got missed too much and the grease hardened up so they would not take grease. Stick gun on and count to three and move one even if grease never went anywhere.

Then on the autolube systems they might go several days on a filling and operator would "forget" to fill reservoir. Or it might stop working altogether and operator would not say anything till you could hear the creaking and groaning of the machine half way across the quarry!

kshansen said:

I guess I'm a bit on the fence on this one.

I do like the idea of getting up close and personal with the parts needing greased but an automatic system does reduce a lot of work.

The problem is the way the automatic systems are marketed to too many bosses. They are given the impression that it's a simple thing, install and for get it and never have to do anything more!

The thing is neither method works if you don't have good people. I hated it when management decided to have operators handle the greasing on the mobile equipment that did not have the autolube systems.

Way too many guys would not want to get dirty so they just ignored the fittings that were hard to reach. Then there were the ones where the fittings were bad and the grease just puked out around the fitting with none going where it was needed. Not to mention the fittings that because they got missed too much and the grease hardened up so they would not take grease. Stick gun on and count to three and move one even if grease never went anywhere.

Then on the autolube systems they might go several days on a filling and operator would "forget" to fill reservoir. Or it might stop working altogether and operator would not say anything till you could hear the creaking and groaning of the machine half way across the quarry!

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I know my JD 1270 has the option of an auto lube system which will alarm when down to 2 tubes worth of grease in the container and won’t allow you to clear the code off the screen if empty.

I've looked at plenty of 10,000 hour machines with auto-lube systems that had all original pins and bushings. That was enough for me to recommend them if they could be afforded.
I've also looked at my share of 3,500 hour squeakers where the operator couldn't change a cartridge let alone know which end of the gun to attach to the nipple.

John C. said:

I've looked at plenty of 10,000 hour machines with auto-lube systems that had all original pins and bushings. That was enough for me to recommend them if they could be afforded.
I've also looked at my share of 3,500 hour squeakers where the operator couldn't change a cartridge let alone know which end of the gun to attach to the nipple.

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Anyone ever come across the old Trabon systems that used 80W-90 oil in place of grease? Those were the first systems we had at the quarries. On the machines with air brake, which were about all of them, the way the oil was regulated is each time the operator applied the brakes it actuated the pump.

The oil went from the pump out to what I would call sequence valve blocks. Each joint got it's shot of lube before the next one did and the amount was controlled by the size of the valve. Seem to recall there was an indicator that would pop up if a joint was plugged stopping the whole system.

The biggest problem we had with them was the lines from the sequence valves to the various lube point were a bit on the fragile side, more so with a bit of age. Now if you had a good operator who kept a close watch on his machine and fixed any broken lines as soon as he spotted them the system actually worked good.

I recall one particular 966C that did have a good operator and he had a boss who supported his efforts to maintain the machine. That is often the problem, boss in too big a hurry and won't let the good ones do what needs doing! I wish I knew the hours on that machine when it was finally sold. I do know that not one pin or bushing was ever replaced. When I had to reseal the hoist cylinders a couple years before it was sold the chrome plating on the pins only showed a bit of polishing to the normal dull finish of a new pin.

My only experience with auto lube was on a Cat345 excavator. The slew got so much grease that it blew out the circle seal but the bucket pins squealed all day. I mentioned this to the site manager. His response was that Cat set it up and that it was their problem to fix. A hand pump grease gun could have saved them a s#it load.

I've always greased by hand. Never had an auto lube. I would love to have one tho, but also agree that you see things while greasing that you wouldn't notice otherwise until it fails.

My problem with manual grease is owners. "Get that thing off the trailer and start working! Grrr, rawr!"

I get mad because I'm the one who WANTS to grease it, but by the time they let me, all the grease is burned and half the zerks don't take grease anymore. I swapped half the zerks on our skip loader 2 months ago, half the zerks on the loader dont take grease now. I literally have to get up earlier to put in my time for free to make sure the machine works properly and it doesn't sound like I'm torturing a dinosaur.

Jeckyl1920 said:

My problem with manual grease is owners. "Get that thing off the trailer and start working! Grrr, rawr!"

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Never understood a boss/owner that did not want to take care of a piece of equipment! You'd almost think they had a brother-in-law who does line boring. There is no way I can believe the labor cost and the cost of the grease can even come close to the cost of the repair for one pin and bushing. Not to mention the downtime while machine is out of service for repairs.