Greasing and changing disk bearings

Rod

That is one heck of a nice disk!

I can't ever remember not using an IH disc; we've just always had the things around and have always been in the habit of greasing them every half day when using 'em hard.

They take a lot of grease; roughly 20 pumps per bearing. Grease 'em until you see the grease coming out. Haven't lost a bearing out of an IH disc yet; knock on wood. :>)

Don't forget the four zerks located on the lifting pipe.

Allan

Most bearing failure has been created by over greasing. Too much grease pops the seals and that lets particles of soil and water in. In some respect the old bushing type disk bearings were better, you just kept them full of grease and soil and water couldn"t enter. That just created bad habits for later when sealed bearings came along. I once bought a new 20" Bush Hog disk with sealed bearings. My operator loved to grease equipment adequatly, then some, two years later we were into changing bearings. The new bearings came without grease zerks. Parts man told me it was the only way to cure grease gun fanatics. It worked, the replacments were much better.

Sorry Allan

When greasing sealed bearings Do Not grease to much as to open up the seal.

Unless you are going to grease every half day or more so the grease holds the dirt out instead of the seal.

When working at the weld shop we replaced a lot of bearings from over greasing, maybe more than the ones that were under greased. The farmers I considered ruff on equipment had fewer bearings go out than the farmers that had shiny nice looking equipment.

My $0.02 Gary

We all do what works best, I guess.

My neighbor claims that the big chains on those NH balers will last twice as long if you just run 'em dry. Says he bought two of the 855s new and oiled the chains on one and just let the other go dry. Says that the dry one lasted 2 years longer tham the oiled machine. Go figure. :>(

Just don't know. I made up my mind a long time ago tho, if I ever see a bad bearing in a disk, it will get traded off before I tie into that jaw-breaker of a job. :>)

Allan