The old timer at the shop told me to grease the cutterhead bearings every 40 hours, not 80

I figured he was just being old school and overdoing it. My manual said 80 hours so I stuck with that for about 6 months on the job in Mobile. Last week I pulled the cutterhead and found the bearings were dry and starting to pit. Cost me a full day of downtime to swap them out and $140 for new bearings. Anyone else run into a situation where the factory specs didn't hold up in real world mud?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant_palmer1mo ago

Can you run 40 hour intervals and see if those bearings last longer the second time around?

iris_green841mo ago

But honestly is that really something you need to be testing? I mean we're talking about grease here not rocket science. If 20 hours keeps them running fine for months why push it to 40 just to see what happens? You might save a few bucks on grease but you could also end up buying new bearings way sooner and that's way more expensive. I guess I see the logic behind wanting to find the perfect balance but sometimes good enough is good enough.

willow7321mo ago

Ran into the same thing with my excavator. Factory specs said 50 hours on the pivot pins but they were gone in four months working in that heavy Alabama clay. Started hitting them every 20 hours with a grease gun and they've been fine ever since.