Preventative Maintenance Schedule

Hello, Lazarus here. A whole lot of greasing going on. Driveshafts, linkages, u-joints. Do modern trucks still need that much lube attention? I would think they would powder coat and seal a driveshaft by now.

 

Moving parts. Metal to metal. These things will always need some sort of attention. They do put sealed non-greasable u-joints in some trucks but those eventually wear out too.

 

Grease is your friend.

 

We have not advanced that much where we have zero lube requirements for trucks.

Most of my trucks have autolube systems, high up front cost, better return becuase parts seem to last longer.

 

Do you know how many ujoints or s-cams I have seen fail due to too much grease?

 

Agree, just a squirt, and some things you do not need to grease if you are on a weekly or bi-weekly grease schedule. They can go a bit longer like you alluded to.

 

Bud, I'm being totally sarcastic. ZERO!!! Never seen anything fail due to too much grease!

 

I have, in the hands of a grease monkey anything is possible! I have seen gallons of grease in a few transmissions from overzealous "mechanics", so much so the #### truck would not shift. I have seen the boots, dust covers, on slack adjusters blown out and loaded with crap. Boots in front end components blown out and loaded with road crap and in need of repair. Yes, you can over grease. That is what I am speaking of.

 

One of the best companies I have ever run for has a shop library on every truck they own. Each truck got a three ring school binder. A unit number is on each binder. Inside that binder contains the life time history of work done to that specific truck from the first moment a company took possession of it. And retained after it's sold.

You need a man whose task is to do nothing but go through your trucks and decide which tractor is sickest and needs some TLC and work down from there. Eventually you will want to make a standard tractor across the entire fleet so that task is made very simple relatively speaking over time.

As far as the three ring binders in the shop library, they are never removed from that room, it contained two good chairs of some plush for reading purposes. Everything done to a tractor is then added to that binder and scanned for storage off site backup.

Eventually out of chaos must be order. Not necessarily what you had in mind today but tomorrow you will have a good idea that three trucks need a oil change this week...

 

unless you get paid for chaos. then it would not be in your best interest to ever have order.