stella22•7d agoMost Upvoted

I finally listened to that old timer about cutterhead maintenance

Back in March a guy named Red at the marina in Norfolk told me to flush the cutterhead bearings every 20 hours instead of 50, and I thought he was crazy. After chewing through a $1,200 bearing set last month on a tight channel job, I realized he was right and I should have listened sooner. Has anyone else gotten advice from a veteran that seemed overkill but actually saved you money?

3 comments

3 Comments

olivermason6d ago

Huh. I'm gonna be the one who says it, but I think you guys are getting played by confirmation bias. @the_viola, you're greasing swing bearings every 10 hours? That's just throwing grease in the water. I've run the same set of cutterhead bearings for three seasons on a 50-hour flush schedule and never had a failure. The only time I cooked a set was when I ran them dry for 100 hours straight because I forgot. My dad worked dredge maintenance forty years and always said if you're flushing every 20 hours you're either using cheap bearings or you don't trust your machine. I'm betting that $1,200 set failed because of a bad seal or contamination during install, not because you waited an extra 30 hours.

the_viola6d ago

That Red was spot on, I started greasing my swing bearings every 10 hours after a old dredge hand told me the same and never looked back.

gavin_kim6d ago

Started doing the same thing about two years back after a buddy told me my bearings sounded like a dying cat. I was skeptical at first 'cause I thought I was saving time by skipping it, but now I just do it while I'm waiting for my morning coffee to kick in. Saves me from having to tear the whole thing apart in the middle of a job, which I've definitely done before and it's not fun.