best grease?

[daman]

Usually you will only get skidding from smaller needle type bearings for obviously reasons,we've yet had any type issues with our bearings,anyway...glad you got yours figured out and using the proper grease in the pins etc,extending maintenance intervals is a time/money saver.

 

[Nige]

I agree. Most of the skidding issues I've seen before were with uncaged parallel rollers where they tend to "bunch" and therefore end up rubbing on one another. When Cat switched from taper rollers (extremely expensive) to parallel uncaged roller bearings (20% of the price of taper) on the 2nd reduction planetary shafts of their large trucks back around 03-04 all Hell broke loose. However as I said before when a slewing ring costs around $100k there's a limit beyond which I'm not prepared to stick my neck out just to prove a point that it'll run fine on grease with a moly additive.

 

[blitz138]

Nige every time I start to respond to a post you beat me to it and said about the same thing I was thinking.

 

[Nige]

Great minds think alike, or so my mother told me ...................

 

[JHESL]

We did ask. They provided a letter from the supplier of their slewing bearings (NTN if I recall correctly) stating that friction-reducing additives such as moly were not permitted in the grease used to lubricate said slewing rings because they had past experience of rollers "skdding" and wearing flat spots. In truth a cross-roll slewing ring is already a low-friction design (as are all roller bearings TBH) and therefore should not require additional friction reducers in the grease.

With a new slewing ring for one of our shovels close to 100 grand and probably on a 6 month delivery time we figured it would be better to follow their recommendations, especially while the machines were under warranty.

The reason all this came up was that we wanted to use a moly grease in the pins in the front end linkage of our Hitachis for obvious reasons, but the machines have automatic lubrication (including the slewing ring) all fed from a single grease tank and a single grease pump. What we ended up doing was to manufacture our own tanks with 2 compartments each one with its own pump. The central lube system was split and now one tank contains a lithium-base NLGI #2 non-moly grease and supplies only the slewing ring, the other compartment has a high-quality 800kg+ NLGI #1 5% moly grease in it. As a result pin galling on the front end of the machine has reduced almost to zero. We haven't done a pin in months.

This really good info. Thanks Nige. BTW: What type of high quality 800kg+ 5 % moly grease do you use for the pins?

 

[daman]

the other compartment has a high-quality 800kg+ NLGI #1 5% moly grease in it. As a result pin galling on the front end of the machine has reduced almost to zero.

I'm just curious but why are you using a #1 grease in your pins? to thin for summer temps should have a #2 in there.

 

[Nige]

Lubricating manually I would tend to agree with you, but with an autolube system things are a little different. Also you need a grease with the correct base oil viscosity .............. that's what makes the difference in my experience. One grease we use is a manufactured using a base stock of ISO 220VG viscosity. It's actually rated NLGI #0 but it pumps beautifully and sticks to pins like a sticky thing ........ having an 800kg 4-ball weld number doesn't hurt either.

Also for Lincoln autolube systems an NLGI #2 grease can occasionally cause the injectors not to reset properly because the grease doesn't flow back through the vent valve freely enough when the pump shuts off, thus leading to pins getting under-greased. I've had quite a few instances of that, even in tropical ambient temperatures. This is especially true on loaders where grease cycle intervals can be as close as every 5 minutes. If you have a maximum pump running time of 90 seconds per cycle that only leaves you 3-1/2 minutes after the pump stops for all the injectors to reset. However the benefit of an autolube system is that your pins get fresh grease very frequently. Actually what you want to happens is that the grease moves through the joint on a regular basis and takes all the cack like dirt, water, etc, with it as it leaves the joint and falls to the ground, thus keeping the joint clean internally.

Greasing manually once or twice a shift I would agree with you and use an NLGI #2 in my sort of climatic conditions. In actual fact our lube truck is equipped with NLGI #2 for manually lubricating things like graders, dozer rippers and smaller excavators.

On this particular job site I've been running 3 x Cat 994's & 2 x Hitachi EX3600's for the past 3 years and we have had a sum total of 1 pin failure on all 5 machines in that time. The case for the prosecution rests m'lud .........

JHESL. We're using either Bel-Ray Molylube SP-4-220-0 (synthetic-based, actually an NLGI #0) or Cat Ultra 5 Moly (mineral oil-based). They are both extremely good and I would recommend either one.
Other greases I've been around in the past that worked well were Exxon Super Moly & Petro-Plate M5/800. I have also got good reports of Conoco Omnigard XD5 but no personal experience of it.

 

[daman]

We use #2 in all our AL systems no problem pumping it,maybe yours is different.

 

[Nige]

Not so much a pumping issue, especially in hotter climates. More the injectors not always resetting properly. Do the systems you have include a line pressure sensor that monitors the time it takes for the pressure to decay to zero when the pump stops and the vent valve opens ..? Ours trigger an alarm if the line pressure does not fall to zero within a certain time. This indicates that some or all of the injectors may not have reset properly before the next cycle.

 

[daman]

I don't believe so,just sensors/alarm for flow,making sure grease is moving..manual cycle and cycle times/duration.

 

[Nige]

I can tell you the first machine we got with that set-up gave me nightmares. First we figured it was a defective pressure sensor, but then two replacement sensors behaved exactly the same way. We got the lubricant supplier involved and discovered that although the grease moved fine under the positive pressure of the pump in the direction of the injectors it was really reluctant to move backwards in the line when the pump stopped and the vent valve opened. If the grease does not move back freely and the pressure in the line falls to zero some or all of the injectors will not reset in time for the next greasing cycle. It only happens in loaders/excavators because of the short time interval between one cycle ending and the next one starting. Other systems like haul trucks on say a 60-minute cycle interval have no problems if it takes 5 minutes or more for the injectors to completely reset.

Indirectly this is where I discovered that although a grease may be rated NLGI #0 or #1 it can still stay in a joint really well in high ambient temperatures over 40 DegC so long as it is manufactured from a high viscosity base stock. As I said before one of the best greases on the market, Bel-Ray Molylube SP-4, has 4 viscosity options and every one is rated NLGI #0.

What brand of NLGI #2 grease are you using in your AL systems ..?

 

[daman]

Just your run of the mill John deere HD lithium #2, as that feeds moslty the high speed drum/cutter head/kernel processor bearings on our JD forage chopper, everything else on the header/steering etc,etc gets the Schaeffer's #2 238.

Our large square bailer has basically the same AL system with same #2 grease used.

 

[blitz138]

Until recently I sold and installed Lincoln systems. The grade of grease really depends on the temperature and of course what type injector your using. The newer "V" injectors vent at a much lower psi. I can post some injector info if anyone needs it or if you tell me what type of grease I can see if I still have the info for different types of grease.

 

[Nige]

I'll second that. SL-V injectors are now much more common than the former SL-1 model which is the one we had problems with resetting when using heavier grades of grease. Somewhere I have a Lincoln video showing how much faster and easier the SL-V injectors vent compared to an SL-1. As I said before, if your time between cycles is longer than 5 minutes there is no problem, it's the short intervals that kill you on injector resets if you don't use the appropriate grease for the system.

 

[thabull]

what do u think of superlube grease or any grease with PTFE (teflon slickist thing known to man)

 

[Nige]

what do u think of superlube grease or any grease with PTFE (teflon slickist thing known to man)

You don't give up do you ..........?? Look back to my comments on the previous page.

 

[blitz138]

Superlube is a decent grease for low pressure applications but its way to expensive. You can find better grease for the money. Btw Nige I work for Belray now, let me know if you need anything concerning Belray!

 

[JHESL]

just wanted to report back on the Chemtron Green Dot Grease. I decided to bite the bullet and bought 2 45lb buckets. Got part-way through the first one before we realized it was complete crap. It was congealing and washing out of the bushings and by midafternoon, the pins started squealing. It looks like the grease turns to a whitish-grey crud in the salt water that we're digging in, and just sloughs out of the bushings. Now I'm pissed because this is supposed to be the "best" grease on the market, according to their sales rep in Davie, Fla. I would have though that if they are based in Florida, their grease should stand up in a salt water environment. Worst of all, after shipping and import taxes, I ended up paying - get this - over a thousand dollars for 90 lbs of this ****. I'm thinking I just bought two buckets of the worlds most expensive play goo. Maybe I'll save it for Halloween and give it to the kids to make green slime with...

 

[daman]

I take it this grease is lithium base? earlier in this thread i had mentioned a better base thickener is needed for water washout performance vs a lith grease, i'll say it again look for a aluminum complex or calcium complex thickener. you should have only boughten 1 bucket till you now how well it works.

 

[JHESL]

I take it this grease is lithium base? earlier in this thread i had mentioned a better base thickener is needed for water washout performance vs a lith grease, i'll say it again look for a aluminum complex or calcium complex thickener. you should have only boughten 1 bucket till you now how well it works.

Yep, I'm kicking myself now. Thing is that we had used a couple of tubes already (before I bought the two buckets) and it looked like it was standing up good to pound out, but after digging all day in salt water, it was a different story. Expensive lesson learned, I guess...
What I need is an extreme duty high load grease that stays put when digging submerged in salt water. Anyone have direct experience with those kind of conditions?
FYI: We're using a Derre 800C (80 ton machine) with an Add-a-Boot (which weighs like 5800lbs) and a 5.3 CY heavy duty bucket (which weighs 7780lbs) digging very dense blasted crystaline coral rock in 30+ feet of salt water - just to give you a picture of the lind of conditions we're digging in.