Make the most of inspections

Regular inspections and maintenance of equipment is crucial for the success of a heavy equipment business.

Down time means reduced productivity, which means less money coming in, says Joseph Giovinazzo, president of lubricants wholesaler Petrocon Corporation.

“We started doing presentations on lubrication and lubricants being the lifeblood of the machine,”

said Giovinazzo, who gave a presentation on the subject earlier this year at the triennial ConExpo-Con/Agg heavy equipment trade show in Las Vegas. “What we found was that guys really didn’t know what and where to put in the machine. There was a lot of confusion with mechanics but it got even greater talking to operators who were mostly in charge of topping off the lubricants, the grease in the machine, and doing the preventative maintenance, morning inspections and communicating how the machine is operating back to maintenance.”

Giovinazzo quickly changed focus to include the operators of the machines who are the first line of defense in the field.

“The operators, those are the guys that know ‘I’ve got a valve sticking; I’ve got a control mechanism that’s not operating properly; the machine is sluggish; I get some chatter when I engage it in gear,’” Giovinazzo says. “We started to figure out a program where we could educate the operator without burdening him with all the technicalities of the lubricants and true preventative maintenance.”

Notice the obvious

One of the most informative experiences that has shaped Giovinazzo’s presentations was with a Winchester, Virginia-based company whose equipment manager asked for a training session for its operators and safety people. The manager also asked Petrocon to take a look through the company’s yard, to see what issues might be found with the company’s equipment. Petrocon found a wide variety of common-sense problems that were not being reported back to the mechanics.

“As we walked around, we started looking at hydraulic hoses and we started to see, for example, this machine has frayed hoses and is leaking around the fitting,” says Giovinazzo. “This other machine the hoses are painted over and the paint is insulating the heat coming off the hose which can cause it to break more quickly and start leaks. We saw planetary gear boxes on differentials that were showing leaks. When you have any oil leaking out, you have dirt seeping in. Plus it’s a hazard on the machine; it makes the machine slippery. A lot of machinery today, like big excavators, are pushing 6,000 psi plus – you blow a hose with 6,000 psi plus, you’ve got an environmental condition potentially by the time you hit the stop button on the machine. Let alone the safety hazard – you get a pin hole in a 6,000 psi hose, it can turn into quite an effective laser and punch a hole right through somebody. There are safety issues like that and sometimes the guys on the machine don’t realize the dangers and the pressures they’re working with on a daily basis.”

Petrocon also added infrared heat guns to its repertoire. They allow for quicker diagnosis of certain issues — a differential that keeps blowing out, for example, can be analyzed by the heat guns to see if it is operating within normal operating temperatures or to examine the exhaust manifold and find a leaking injector without taking an entire engine apart.

“The other commonsense items are the fluid handling procedures and grease procedures,” says Giovinazzo. “Simple things like wiping off the zerk fitting on the equipment that they’re greasing that’s full of mud and dust. Sticking the grease gun on that fitting and pushing all of the dirt into the joint or the bearing.”

Use the right stuff

Using the right fluids in the right circumstances can make a huge difference, Giovinazzo says. Different gear lubricants can be identified by their smell, for example. Certain gear lubricants are fortified with extreme-pressure additives, which can be detrimental to components with brass or non-ferrous material. Giovinazzo’s presentations also cover proper storage and handling of fluids — if storing drums outside, keep them on their sides so that the drum doesn’t breathe water into the oil, for example.

“We talk about the requirements for the componentry, the cleanliness of the oil, the importance of keeping the integrity of the oil clean,” Giovinazzo says. “We talk about the cleanliness of the new oil coming out of the drum or the bulk tank, how that’s not really clean. And then we talk about how filtration is set up on the equipment, which is typically return lines so if they’re putting dirty oil in it goes through all the valves, the servos, all the components before it even gets filtered by the machine.”

Recalling that early presentation in Winchester, Giovinazzo says he showed photos of some of the issues being discussed to the 100 or so workers in attendance. Some of those workers were dismissive.

“Guys were kind of chuckling when we were showing them, like ‘how can they not see that?’” Giovinazzo says. “At the end, the equipment manager stood up and said, ‘I know you guys think this is funny, but this equipment is not a random photo, this is our equipment in the yard.’ And then the jaws dropped. It was an eye opener for them. It was a neat session and now we do that all over the country. We’re just revealing all the things to look for and we encourage them to incorporate that into the existing equipment inspection walk-around.”

— Matt Jones

Matt Jones is a regular contributor to Service Truck Magazine. He is based in Fredericton, N.B.

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