McElroy Discussion Forums

Hello to all. My name is Keith Fox. I'm with ISCO Industries and I work in our Louisville Rental Maintenance Shop. I've been out here at the shop for 2 years now but have been with ISCO over 5 years. I have attended the Small/Medium/Tracstar Troubleshooting classes at McElroy. Over the last year or so we've noticed something on the listed size machines in the subject line that we feel would increase the longevity of certain parts that we've replaced numerous times. Here's our idea.

What we're seeing on the newer in-ditch style machines is the wear and tear on the Indexer Shaft and Bearings are pretty common after the machine has been in service after a short period of time. We're seeing grooves in the shaft develop pretty early on and the bearings are wearing out fairly quickly. We feel that the weight of this assembly (indexing carriage, heater, facer, heater bag support arm assembly, pivot arms, attachment arms, etc...) is causing the wear of the shaft and bushings sooner than expected. When running the indexer assembly from left to right and if you are viewing the assembly from the "back" side of the machine (opposite of operator side), once the indexer gets to the middle of the indexing shaft, you can actually see the shaft "sag". This of course is causing strain on the shaft and bearings.

We suggest that McElroy possibly look to add / attach some sort of support block under the indexing carriage that can ride on the carriage skid weldment via roller bearing or maybe some sort of brass ride plate along the carriage skid. We feel that keeping the indexing carriage assembly supported in its natural position, it would help alleviate the wear and tear on the indexing shaft and bearings.

We just wanted to throw that out at you guys and see what your thoughts on this would be. If you would like to discuss with me personally, you can reach me via email or by phone.

Email: Keith.Fox@isco-pipe.com
Phone: 502-318-6789

Thanks!

Keith

_________________
Keith Fox
Riverport Maintenance Coordinator
ISCO Industries, LLC
10711 Freeport Court
Louisville, KY 40258
502-318-6789
Keith.Fox@isco-pipe.com

We noticed the same thing you did regarding the grooves starting to form along the rod the carriage travels along. We also noticed the same wear and tear on our facer pivot arm shafts on our 618’s and 412’s and our fix for that was replacing the liner bearings with Teflon linear bushings. So far on our pivot arm shafts for the smaller machine it has worked out great. Only time will tell if it seems to do as good of a job on our T900 indexing carriage.

Guys,

Thanks for the feedback. Let us chew on this a bit.

Jason