(SAN DIEGO, Calif.–) Truckers are challenging the grease industry to extend lubrication intervals and to better protect their fleets. Truckers see short grease intervals as a major limiting factor in their push for more cost-effective preventive maintenance schedules. And in North America, 70 to 80 percent of automotive greases now go into heavy-duty fleets, but today’s grease specs were developed primarily for passenger cars and light trucks.
At this week’s National Lubricating Grease Instutite annual meeting, Charles Sheely of Southeastern Freight Lines described his company’s needs as a grease consumer, and appealed for longer grease intervals. In a follow-up presentation coauthored with Sheely, Robert Richardson of Lubrizol Corp. summarized some of the gaps in today’s grease specs, and what the industry is doing to fill them.
Sheely is manager of maintenance and purchasing at Southeastern Freight Lines, Columbia, S.C., where he oversees a $52 million annual maintenance budget, to keep the company’s 2,000 tractors, 6,030 trailors, 480 forklifts, 775 dollies, and 249 autos in peek condition. Half of that budget goes for fuel, lubes and grease.
At Southeastern’s 20 maintenance facilities, 240 maintenance employees implement detailed PM programs. “For our 1,500 pickup and delivery vehicles, we’ve extended the oil drain intervals to 180 days through oil analysis,” Sheely said. “But the grease interval is still 90 days. This means we have to grease equipment between oil changes.” And the same situation exists for other equipment.
While service intervals on crankcase oils and other fluids are growing longer — to 675,000 miles for transmission and differential fluids, to 225,000 miles for antifreeze — grease intervals haven’t budged.
“Universal joints are the toughest grease applications. It’s very important to grease every 90 days,” said Sheely. “Fifth wheel trailor connectors must be greased at shortPM intervals. Shackle pins support the weight of the vehicle, and steel axle slack adjustors are also critical. We now use a high-performance extreme-pressure grease.”
Sheely has looked at automated grease dispensing systems, but he’s not excited about what he found. “They work as long as the hoses are connected, and the grease pots are full. So those systems are just one more thing to maintain.
“We also see modifications to grease fittings,” Sheely continued. “You increasingly see greaseless fittings on trucks, but we’re also seeing failures on fittings.”
What do fleets want from their grease suppliers?
We don’t want to know four-ball test results, said Sheely, we want to know how many miles we’ll get between maintenance.
“We want vendors who can make recommendations for improvements, and we want to see data on improvements. We want vendors who use industry standards.
“We want vendors who know our business and know our maintenance procedures. We want data to support product claims.”
But most of all, said Sheely, “we want to know how to increase grease intervals to meet other lube intervals.”
“The fleet market has needs the grease industry isn’t meeting,” Lubrizol’s Robert Richardson agreed. Current grease specifications were developed mainly around light-duty vehicles, and they are becoming dated. Most light-duty grease applications are now sealed-for-life. Richardson estimated that 70 to 80 percent of automotive grease in the U.S. is now used in heavy-duty (truck and bus) applications.
Extended grease intervals is the biggest issue for heavy-duty fleets. Some individual grease suppliers and fleets may have made progress in this area, but there has been no industry-wide effort. Richardson listed other issues to address:
1. Automatic greasing systems. Design variations and a lack of appropriate grease specs for these systems makes this an important unmet need of the fleet grease market.
2.Corrosion requirements. Growing use of calcium chloride and magnesium chloride to replace sodium chloride as road deicers has resulted in increased tractor and trailor corrosion. Grease can protect some chassis components from the effects of these deicers, but there is a lack of specifications and standards in this area.
3. Water spray-off requirements for fifth wheel and other heavy-duty applications. Shouldn’t water spray-off requirements be considered in specifying fifth-wheel grease? Is the water run-off clean?
4.Grease for wheel bearings and non-drive axles. Do we know enough about these applications to ensure that grease specs can identify capable greases, Richardson, asked, particularly given the desire for extended lube intervals?
5. Elastomer compatibility. Currently there are no requirements.
“Current grease specs don’t address end user needs,” Richardson concluded, “although existing tests may help address some of the specification gaps.” To meet these needs, SAE’s grease task force has been revived, with Richardson as chair. Their goals are first, cooperative development of grease standards, including both specifications and end-user language, with input and guidance from the fleet industry; and second, a Recommended Practice written by the American Trucking Association’s Technology and Maintenance Council, in close cooperation with SAE, NLGI, and ASTM, to give fleet maintenance personnel the grease information and guidance they need.