How are YOUR drivelines.

The drive line under your Pump or TB are part of the Heart of your machine, Have you checked them recently????

And by check I don’t mean “yep they are still there”  

Drive line balance is not a constant for the life of the unit, damage and wear can occur, balancing weights come loose dents and abrasion and the all to often Grease Worms in the U-Joints can cause vibration that is like cancer to your unit, slowly damaging PTO bearings and gears, Shaking pumps loose and damaging internal components, even wear on the PTO air shift cylinder can be related to driveline vibration.

So what can be done?

It is not a bad idea to have drivelines rebalanced if concerned, do you feel any vibration in the deck as you throttle up, or a new vibration at different speeds when driving.

I love the Coffee test, Set your cup on the fender and throttle up is it still there or dancing all over, I was doing a boom inspection, had a fresh cup of Joe and set it on the deck to cool. The cup migrated off the fender and I lost the coffee. But possibly saved the customer some extreme repairs.

Long and short of it is Check them out, NEVER get under the unit with it running, but with proper lock out, you can feel u-joints, and inspect the tubes and slip flanges, you need to grease them anyway, Right????

As for your service mechanics they don’t always drive the units on road so they might not notice the new vibration, and operators can become accustom to the vibration and think it is normal, face it pumps are not the smoothest trucks on the road.

Telebelts also have 2 drivelines from the Trans to the pumps, these are not turning when you are driving, but when they vibrate or break the result is the same, UNIT Down.

I had one guy lost Belt operation on a large job, he later found out after digging around in the electrical box that his drive line was comfortably resting in the mud under the truck.

So give them a look, and keep it safe never under a running truck pump or TB.

I am sure some of you can tell stories of late night’s and lost pours due to the simple Driveline.

Thanks for the good lesson again traveltech

I sure hope he bought you another cup of coffee...

just checked mine last week when I serviced it. we service every 300 engine hrs. but I often climb under during my pre trip to check it out or if I start to feel a vibration while driving when under throttle. another easy way to tell if its drive / rear end or axle related is if you have a vibration while driving if it goes away when you let off the throttle you can narrow it down to trans axle driveshaft or u joint. most of the time u joints are to blame

but all you guys probably knew that

I recently had the bolt that holds the yoke to the transmission come loose.  Thank god it was a easy fix.  Put a little locktite on her this time.  Good write up. 

Had to be a Mack , we have to check them every service.

check mine every week and grease . have the balanced ang joints replaced every 12 months