Crane Maintenance: The importance of crane's lubrication management

BY Dongqi Crane IN Overhead Crane Blog

Same as other machinery, crane’s operation must reply on the adequate lubrication; if lubricating oil failure, the Overhead Crane will begin to wear down. So the correct lubrication is very important to the crane. Different parts’ lubrication should be checked each 2~3 month according to the different location. As for the cranes working at harsh conditions, lubrication cycle should be reduced accordingly.

Lubricating position

The gearbox, open gear, wheel bearing, rail, motor bearing, the brake ect.

Here we discuss the lubrication position in detail

Lubrication should follow the requirement of maintenance manual, different brands of lubrication oil should not be mixed.

Gearbox: normally oil pool should be used for lubrication, summer with N100 load gear oil or 30 gear oil, winter with N78 load gear oil or 20 gear oil.
Hydraulic brake actuator: summer with 25 transformer oil, winter with No. 10 aviation oil or instrument oil.
The lubrication of the wire rope is made of synthetic graphite calcium base grease or other wire rope grease, and the grease is coated on the steel wire rope. Pay attention to make sure the penetration of oil entering into the wire rope.
Various parts of the bearing, gear coupling and open gear should be lubricated with lithium based grease, 2 in summer, winter with No. 1.
For joints and bolts with a slight relative movement, lubricated with calcium or lithium based grease or 45 oil.

Matters needing attention

Gearbox lubricating oil increase the amount of oil or oil needle into the upper and lower limits of calibration, not higher than the upper limit, if excessive oil spill will occur.
Lubricating oil should always be kept clean. If you use grease, clean up the previously used grease.
Regular cleaning of oil pipeline, to keep the oil path smoothly.
Different models, different brands of oil shall not be mixed use. On above point 2 lubricating oil and grease for the recommended model specifications, customers can use the experience and the relevant information on the selection of lubricants more suitable for different occasions of lubricating oil and grease. The selection of the time to pay attention to consider the condition, load, temperature, dirt etc. If there is water at the points, sodium based grease should not be used.