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.