the_robert•1mo agoTop Commenter

Appreciation post: that guy who told me to check my cutterhead bearings more often

I used to think checking bearings every 50 hours was overkill... just wasted time when nothing was wrong. Then I had a cutterhead lock up on me out near Baton Rouge on a tight channel job. Cost me 6 hours of downtime and a $900 repair bill because a bearing let go and took the seal with it. Has anyone else learned that lesson the hard way or am I the only one who ignored the maintenance schedule?

2 comments

2 Comments

skyler5161mo ago

Hold up, you're checking bearings every 50 hours? That seems excessive. Most manufacturers call for every 200 hours on cutterhead bearings unless you're running in heavy mud or sand.

simontorres29d agoMost Upvoted

Nah, I gotta disagree with you there. Everybody's running different conditions and those grease zerks can hide a lot of problems if you don't check them often. I've seen guys run 200 hours on a bearing that was already making a faint chirp at 100, and by the time they caught it, it was too late and the whole cutterhead had to come apart. Fifty hours is just a quick peek with a stethoscope, not a full teardown, and it's saved me from a couple of early replacements over the years.