Used to swear by greasing rails every single month until an old timer showed me his logbook

I was hardcore about greasing guide rails monthly, every job, no excuses. Last week a retired mechanic with 30 years in stopped by the shop and saw my schedule. He laughed and pulled out his old maintenance log. He only greased his rails every 3 months and did a quick dry run test in between. His cars ran smoother and he had way less drag issues than me. Tried stretching it to 6 weeks on my last two jobs and saw zero problems. Plus cut my grease bill by a third. Any of you guys run longer intervals or am I just being lazy?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_stone22d ago

Three months is standard for low traffic elevators, honestly.

elizabeth43822d ago

My dentist's office elevator broke down for four months and they just put up a sign saying "stairs recommended" the whole time. Turned out the part was on backorder from some company in Ohio. And @evan_stone you're probably right about the timeline, but I've seen buildings where the maintenance guy just forgets to schedule the quarterly inspection and suddenly it's been six months. The real issue is nobody actually checks unless the thing starts making that grinding noise.