What grease

[dave7840]

What grease would be best for swinging hammers in our shredders. Currently using just an exol ep2 because it's cheap, paying £1.79 a cartridge but seem to be getting more wear on the steel bushes than normal. Weather they've made the bushes softer to reduce wear on the shafts, I don't know. We grease once a day, 2 cartridges but are going to try doing it twice to see if it helps but if we could find a more suitable grease, it would save 15 mins a day.

 

[spark plug]

I would probably be looking at a grease with graphite or molybdenum but am far from an expert.

 

[Dave W]

What grease would be best for swinging hammers in our shredders. Currently using just an exol ep2 because it's cheap, paying £1.79 a cartridge but seem to be getting more wear on the steel bushes than normal. Weather they've made the bushes softer to reduce wear on the shafts, I don't know. We grease once a day, 2 cartridges but are going to try doing it twice to see if it helps but if we could find a more suitable grease, it would save 15 mins a day.

Surely manufacturers will have a spec for something like that

 

[Netherfield]

Maybe turntable grease would do/ 5th wheel grease.

 

[Lakesdigger]

Not all ep2 are created equal as with anything there will be different qualities between manufacturers and price.
Been using fuchs lx pep2 (green grease) for a few years now they're may be cheaper grease available but I've a 4 ton digger recently clocked 5000hrs and there is barely any pin wear, certainly no where near worth replacing any pins or bushes. It's not over greased either by any means.

 

[ste stuart]

I use jcb blue grease, and as lakesdigger says, my diggers seem to stand hours well using it.

 

[Lakesdigger]

I use jcb blue grease, and as lakesdigger says, my diggers seem to stand hours well using it.

Not a fan of that in bearings or anything that moves fast, bil did wheel bearings on his mk1 escort and it painted the inside of the wheels blue first time down the road

 

[dave7840]

Surely manufacturers will have a spec for something like that

Manual just says ep2. We've not had this problem before. Dealer says the bushes havent changed but there is already a small bit of play after 200 hours on the new shredder and the old one the bushes need changing again after about 500. They should normally do about a 1000.

Not all ep2 are created equal as with anything there will be different qualities between manufacturers and price.
Been using fuchs lx pep2 (green grease) for a few years now they're may be cheaper grease available but I've a 4 ton digger recently clocked 5000hrs and there is barely any pin wear, certainly no where near worth replacing any pins or bushes. It's not over greased either by any means.

This is some of the problem we have to balance the cost of grease against the cost of the bushes and shafts which are both easy enough to replace. We use about 20 cartridges just on the hammers so a few pound more is fine but much more and it would be cheaper to change bushes. We had thought of the blue jcb grease because its more tacky then normal ep2 and can be got for £2.70

 

[76masseyman]

@dave7840
EP2 just means you have an extreme pressure grease with an NLGI of 2. Now there is extreme pressure, and then there is “extreme pressure”.
Please don’t think colour of grease has anything to do with performance, the blue from JCB is a Lithium Complex grease, so is others, some use green, some red, but there are coloured greases out there that are not a complex.
The shredders and crushers I get involved with are using a Lithium Complex HV. This has a higher viscosity index base oil than regular Lithium Complex, so withstands the punishment better on these machines, mainly Doppstadt and McClusky.

 

[clbarclay]

Looking at Morris data sheets, their ordinary K2EP grease has a base oil viscosity of 150, where as their K323 premium blue has a base oil viscosity of 500.

The per cartridge price of the premium grease is close to double that of the ordinary, but if you are using a lot of grease then the price of the 12.5kg tubs is much closer. A tub of premium is also quite a bit cheaper per kg than standard cartridges.

 

[milkloss]

We find JCB blue to be far more liquid ( water, slurry, silage juice) resistant than others we have tried. I have wondered if it’s the right stuff for fast moving bearings though, it seems to have some sort of gummy thickener that’s helps retention.

 

[clbarclay]

Has anyone got or seen a technical data sheet for the JCB's blue grease?

 

[dave7840]

Just order 6 boxes of morris k323 and 6 of rock oils lc hv. Rock oils base oil viscosity is 420. Paid £2.40 for k323 and £3.85 for the hv. Jcb tech sheet does base viscosity

 

[Ayd1988]

Try giving this company a call NCH lubricants +44 1902 510225. Had a sales rep come around 2 years ago and did a demonstration of how their grease is different to the jcb red and blue grease etc, which I used before. I’m a tight arse farmer and although this is much more expensive in my opinion it’s worth it. Would say UJ s and bearings only take one pump of grease after a full day, literally sticks like sh!t to a blanket and is water proof so doesn’t emulsify when wet like most do.

 

[Tractor Tim]

Try giving this company a call NCH lubricants +44 1902 510225. Had a sales rep come around 2 years ago and did a demonstration of how their grease is different to the jcb red and blue grease etc, which I used before. I’m a tight arse farmer and although this is much more expensive in my opinion it’s worth it. Would say UJ s and bearings only take one pump of grease after a full day, literally sticks like sh!t to a blanket and is water proof so doesn’t emulsify when wet like most do.

I bought some of this. The gray stuff? Aluminium complex, high temp stuff for baler it stays where you put it and does a good job. I was struggling with the pto getting hot and spitting all it's grease out put this stuff in and it's been great for about 4 maybe 5 years

 

[Ayd1988]

@Tractor Tim , Yes that’s the stuff, called premalube NLGI