GREASE... every 10 HOURS?

[veresjwv]

O.K. I know maintenance is very important and I am religous when it comes to maintenance. BUT...... my LA463 loader says to grease all the fittings every ten hours. I have no questions about what kind of grease to use , or how to do it, my question is........How do you know when you have actually put ten hours on the loader? I have 58 hours on the tractor now and have been greasing every ten. With 60 hours coming up I have gobs of grease all over the pins and pivot points. (You can't even lean against the arms without getting grease on you.) I use the loader a lot but not the whole time the engine is running. What do you guys do?

 

[magicheater]

Maybe you are over greasing regularly. Is it 10 hours of tractor use or loader use........... Sounds like you do take good care of your tractor.

 

[whistlepig]

Ten hours of loader work is a lot. I grease my loader about twice during the summer months. I use it that little during the summer. This past week I used the loader about 40 hours pushing snow. I greased it twice. I use New Holland Ambra on everything that has a grease fitting. Tractor, attachments, and everything else.

 

[veresjwv]

Maybe you are over greasing regularly. Is it 10 hours of tractor use or loader use........... Sounds like you do take good care of your tractor.

I have been greasing with the hour meter on the engine, How do you judge ten hours of loader time?

 

[whistlepig]

I have been greasing with the hour meter on the engine, How do you judge ten hours of loader time?

For me I have to "guesstimate" the time for greasing the attachments. For example my Woods RFM has to have the spindles greased every 24 hours but the caster wheels, caster pivots, and universals get greased every 8 hours. Over greasing can be bad. Over greasing the mower spindles can cause grease to fling on the belt and ruin it. For the FEL pushing snow isn't heavy work. Little or no load on pins and bushings. No dirt or dust. So I grease every twenty hours or so. Doing heavy loader work moving dirt in dusty conditions requires more frequent greasing. And also, if it squeaks, it needs grease.

 

[teg]

I don't think it's ten hours of "loader" time... I feel that just driving a gravel road or bumpy field will wear down the pins enough for me to grease it every 10 hours (if I use the loader or not). I do use LOTS of grease and yea, it's pretty messy... I will use about a half a roll of paper towels to wipe up/off excess grease. It's too easy and cheap not too.

 

[CurlyDave]

I don't think it's ten hours of "loader" time... I feel that just driving a gravel road or bumpy field will wear down the pins enough for me to grease it every 10 hours (if I use the loader or not). I do use LOTS of grease and yea, it's pretty messy... I will use about a half a roll of paper towels to wipe up/off excess grease. It's too easy and cheap not too.

I agree. Greasing is too cheap & easy to skimp on it. Plus by the time I have accumulated 10 hours of clock time, it may be two months or more and it is time to push the old grease out.

Of course I don't mow anything, just FEL, backhoe, box blade and grapple, so there isn't much I can hurt by overgreasing.

 

[Skyco]

Every 10 hours is whether you are using the tractor or not. It helps to have family members so you can spread the work, someone has to be up every night to grease the tractor

I'm kidding of course. I'm firmly in the camp of overgrease on purpose rather than maybe not grease enough. Yeah its messy, grease is cheap, pins and bushings and the labor to change them are not.
As for the mess, I learned real quick to not even get within 10 ft of my tractor unless wearing clothes I don't care about getting grease on....

 

[AMR]

I use the old guestimate also for greasing. I just keep an idea in my head. Also, if I'm heading out for a big day of moving material or digging stumps or something I am sure to give BH and FEL a good greasing. It is something to do for the few minutes that it warms up anyway.

I tend to hit my MMM every other time which is probably every 4 or 5 hours of actual mowing time.

I can't get any grease into the pedal of my B3030, anyone have an idea how to get to that fitting?

I have a 4 yo and a 2 yo. They have ruined countless shirts/pants/jackets in the garage retrieving toys near the tractor and getting gobs of grease on them. I am OCD cleaning the grease off but you can't always get it all.

 

[radioman]

Most of the time you only need one pump if greased regularly. It kinda easy to figure out when it's needed. Just like others, if you KNOW you plan to use the FEL that day and think its gonna be over an hour of use, grease it up. If you just washed it or came in from the rain,muddy areas, grease it up. Grease pushes the dirt and water out. After a major snowstorm, I grease it up. IMHO, no need to pump till all old grease comes out and have gobs all over, just pump enough to have grease pressure inside so when using the FEL, the new grease gets moved around. The old grease will work it self out anyways.

 

[Dead Horse]

Loader is several times a year for me....... more if using it in the dirt, moving rocks, stumps and such. Over greasong a loader only makes a bit of a mess, nothing else. I will use an old shop rag to wipe around each joint, fitting to keep it under control. "too much is better than too little"

Mowers and PTO shafts, pretty much every time they get used, they get checked and usually get a squirt, always the spindles.........

Too much grease CAN ruin belts, so care need be taken about that, especially where the belt is in a housing and you cannot see if there is a problem building up.

I will pull the housing at the beginning of the season and check condition, clean belts, snug, lubricate, remove debris ect. then I will use an air hose with a long 1/4 pipe for a nozzle, and keep those areas clean of debris during the mowing season.

Dont forget to grease the tractor itself, especially the steering........ easy to forget.

 

[20 20]

This is an application where "too much grease" doesn't apply. If you have grease gobs that is better then having worn parts. I power wash my tractor often{seems like I'm allways in the dirt} part of proper maintanence IMO. When I clean my tractor it's not about making it puurty, it's about maintenance. Plus if something is broke It's easier to spot and much nicer to work on.

 

[MessickFarmEqu]

you can't grease too often. We can tell when people don't. Even after 200-300 hours a loader thats never been greased starts having slop in the pins.

 

[Oldtrout]

We use the Kioti in our landscaping business, moving topsoil,planting trees,pulling out rocks,you name it, The hoe and fel get greased at the end of a 8 hour day,the tractor front end,clutch linkage,etc get greased at the end of each week,unless we get stuck in the mud which has happened a couple of times....long story.... than the tractor gets greased when on hard ground. 600 hours in less than 2 years and nothing replaced yet,so I guess we are doing something right. I would prefer to over grease than under grease as previous posters have said grease is cheap compared to pins and bushings. Besides a few gobs of grease hanging here and there makes it look like we were working.

 

[TripleR]

No, you can't grease "too much" as it relates to wear prevention, but I prefer to use enough to prevent wear and yet conserve resources, so I only grease when needed as close as I can determine by the maintenance schedule.

Globs of grease dropping off all over the place or winding up in our landfills is not something I want to contribute to.

 

[Baby Grand]

I'm averaging about 6 hrs/mo and grease about every other month, so close to the 10 hrs mentioned. I'm inclined to agree with TripleR. I add grease until I see some starting to come out of the joint and then stop. No gobs going in the trash or anywhere. There seems to be a more is better approach to much of tractorland that I just don't get. Maybe it's because I'm so cheap. Also, the idea of getting gobs of grease on my soil annoys me somewhat. I'm trying to make the soil better, not grease it.
-Jim

 

[Kubota 2350]

I grease the FEL whenever I think it needs it.
The more I use it, the more it gets greased

 

[Verticaltrx]

I use my loader heavily, and grease it at about every ten hours of loader time or when I remember if its longer than that. I grease it until grease just starts coming out from around the pins. I don't think its critical to grease it every 10hrs Exactly.

I would bet that only a very small handful of members on this site will ever put enough hours on a loader to wear out the pins with normal maintenance. My uncle has an Allis Chalmers One-Seventy with 20,000+ hours on it and to my knowledge the loader pins or bushing have never been replaced. It gets greased regularly, but not to any set time line.

 

[charlz]

Every 10 hours is whether you are using the tractor or not. It helps to have family members so you can spread the work, someone has to be up every night to grease the tractor

I picked up a Lincoln electric grease gun for $30 at an auction the other day.... so much fun to use I would almost grease every 10 clock hours

I mostly grease the loader before heavy use. The backhoe I grease every time I mount it up as it spends a lot of time sitting so I want to make sure it has fresh grease in it when I go to use it.

 

[RickB]

I would bet that only a very small handful of members on this site will ever put enough hours on a loader to wear out the pins with normal maintenance. .

But there are scores of members that will wear out pins & bushings prematurely due to a lack of maintainence.