It is critical to follow the greasing charts on your sweeper’s maintenance schedule. Greasing not only lubricates the component, but it also pushes old grease out of the mechanism and helps to prevent excessive wear.
Regularly check your grease points (even if your sweeper has an Auto-Lube system) to make sure that the fitting is taking grease and the connection has not been damaged.
When manually lubricating bearings, over-greasing is easy to do, and that’s just as bad as not greasing at all. Over-greasing a bearing can cause the bearing to overheat, melt the lubricant and cause the bearing to sling the hot oil out of the suspension, leaving the bearing un-lubricated. More than 30% of bearing failures happen due to:
– Greasing too frequently.
– Greasing too excessively
It’s also vital to use the correct grease per your sweeper’s handbook. Never mix oils. Doing so could compromise the additive performance and cause corrosion of component surfaces and lead to increased mechanical wear. And be sure that the connections at the bearing, as well as the grease gun, are clean before connecting.
Run the sweeper engine to heat up the old grease. When the bearing grease has warmed, turn the engine off and remove the keys. Slowly pump the grease into the bearing as it spins. As soon as you see a small bead of grease on the outside of the bearing, it’s time to stop filling.
You will see a slight rise in operating temperature (10-30° Fahrenheit) after re-lubricating the bearing. This temperature rise will continue until the grease stabilizes in the bearing chamber.
Of course, when lubricating a rotating bearing, do not wear loose fitting clothes and stay clear of all moving objects. And remember, it’s always easier to maintain a bearing than it is to replace one. Stick to the schedule!
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