Thread: Winterising 3 ph machines

Remember the old Castrol GTX oil ad? "Oils ain't oils", well Sol was right.
I have had for a lot of years now a McNaught grease gun that is loaded with a stick from a bulk grease can. I managed to get onto a cartridge grease gun to make the greasing job more pleasurable(?). I had been using bearing grease in the other gun mainly 'cause thats what I had. Mainly greasing the the chassis of the Landcruiser. I went to but a cartridge of grease for the new gun and was overwhelmed buy the choice. I ended up buying a general duty grease, its a pretty blue colour. I loaded up the new gun with said cartridge and looked around the shed for a likely candidate that I could try my new toy out with. I duly pumped a few good strokes into the Jointer, the one with the 100mm cutter bar with 2 blades in it, Then I moved onto to thicknesser. It had more grease nipples to pump into. Operation over and thought how clever I was to now have a cartridge grease gun (Isn't it funny how we are so easily entertained)
The day came when I needed to use the Jointer. Air temperature would have been only 3 over night. So I turned on the 3Ph Converter and then the Jointer. Talk about s-l-o-w motion!!!!The thermal cutout did its job. So now, where is the problem? I took of the belts to isolate the motor and turned on the switch.......motor ran up to max revs no trouble. Still scratching head.....then it dawned on me. The new bloody blue ubeaut (no reflexion on the name of our beloved Forum owner) grease is too stiff for the bearing on the Jointer.
So now I have to disassemble the cutter bar on the poor old Jointer, clean out the old original grease plus the new blue grease, wash out the bearing and replace the grease with....you guessed it, the wheel bearing grease in the old gun that is a pain to fill.
While I'm at it the Thicknesser will have to have the same surgery as well.
Is this progress.....or digress.
We sure can get our selves into trouble and with no women in site