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Rigging buddy told me to grease the swing bearing every 40 hours and I figured it was overkill
He ran a 60 ton Liebherr at a concrete plant outside Tulsa and swore the grease schedule was why his machine felt smooth after 6,000 hours while ours clunked. I finally pulled the plug and did it on our old Grove last month, and the difference in the swing over a two day pour was real enough that I ate crow at the yard. Anybody here grease that often, or am I just chasing how his machine feels?
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fox.derek7d ago
Man, 40 hours is not crazy at all once you've seen what happens when you skip it. We run a 50 ton Grove at our yard and the swing bearing is the one thing that will eat you alive if you let it go, because once that race gets dry and starts pitting you're looking at a five figure repair and a machine that sits for a month. The grease doesn't just lube the bearing either, it pushes the grit and water out of the teeth and the race, so doing it often is really about flushing the junk out, not just adding lube. His machine felt smooth at 6,000 hours because he was staying ahead of the wear instead of fixing it after. Keep it up and start greasing the swing pinion and the ring gear teeth on the same schedule, that's where a lot of guys forget and then wonder why the swing gets sloppy. Two days of pouring is exactly the kind of workout that will show you the difference, so you weren't imagining it.
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