A preventative heavy equipment maintenance schedule helps prevent costly downtime. It will help identify and prevent potential machine failure. Besides these benefits, regular maintenance also extends the life of heavy equipment parts. At Tornado Heavy Equipment Parts, we have many tips to help you ensure your heavy equipment and its parts last longer while delivering greater efficiency.

1. Sign-up for a Preventative Maintenance Program

Preventative maintenance of heavy equipment helps you identify wear and tear and any potential causes for breakdown. Your technician will take corrective actions on a consistent basis improving reliability, performance, and longevity. Preventative maintenance includes:

• Systematic inspection
• Repair & replacement of heavy equipment spare parts
• Conducting performance tests & analysis

The benefits of a preventative maintenance program include:

• Extending the life of your heavy equipment/construction equipment parts and machinery
• Minimizing unscheduled downtime by reducing unexpected breakdown
• Improving equipment reliability
• Reducing replacement of expensive heavy equipment loaders and parts
• Improving resale value
• Improving parts inventory management

There is more to preventative maintenance than lubrication and changing parts and filters.

2. Get to Know Your Equipment

More product knowledge can be of great help when implementing a preventative maintenance program. This can mean something as simple as reading and understanding the equipment manual. The manual prescribes the manufacturer recommended

• Service intervals for different components
• Servicing products to be used
• Tolerable operating conditions for your equipment

As part of your effort to learn about your equipment, it is important to listen to your machine operators. Your operators get a ‘feel’ of the equipment like no one else. They can sense it when something is not right.

3. Stop Operation When You Suspect an Issue

You should stop the operation if you suspect an issue. This can help prevent any potential damage and provide significant savings in terms of failure costs. While the maintenance routine can have a fixed schedule, there should be flexibility to respond to potential problems.

4. Replace Engine Oil & Filters

The engine oils should be replaced at the recommended intervals and as per the specified application and grade.

• Regular engine oil needs to be replaced after every 250 hours of use
• The oil filters must be replaced every time the oil is changed
• The fuel filters must be replaced every second time the oil is changed

5. Check Air Cleaner Regularly

If you want to extend the life of different heavy equipment parts, it is further recommended to check the air cleaner indicator regularly. Ask the operators to make it a part of their daily routine. If the air filter elements get clogged up, it can result in the turbocharger sucking the air out of the crankcase. This may also cause the fuel injection system to boost fuel injection, leading to an overheated engine. When you check the air cleaner regularly and ensure the filter elements are replaced at recommended intervals, it helps keep the engine healthy, efficient, and productive for longer.

6. Proper Hydraulic System Maintenance

Modern hydraulic systems are designed to be self-contained and require minimal maintenance. They will mostly require occasional hydraulic fluid and filter replacement. Replacing these consumables at regular intervals can help prevent unexpected failure and costly heavy equipment spare parts replacement.

It is recommended to regularly monitor the hydraulic fluid. Hydraulic pumps/motors should be filled and bled after replacement. This is an important step to prevent dry running. It is even more important when a component is installed above the level of the fluid.

7. Regular Inspection

Most heavy equipment parts failures can be prevented with few simple preventative inspections. Set up a preventive maintenance program that involves steam cleaning the machine at regular intervals. Perform a complete visual inspection of all the systems and components, including the attachments. These inspections can help identify any structural cracks. Such damages can usually be detected during their initial phases when the corrective repair can be more affordable.

8. Check & Replace Fuel Injectors on Time

Fuel injectors should be checked regularly and replaced every 3,000 hours of usage. Worn out injector nozzles can result in over-fueling. Fuel injection systems are increasingly designed with greater fuel pressure. While this is good for reducing harmful emissions, it causes the fuel lines to wear out faster. So, it is recommended to check the fuel injection system at regular intervals and replace any worn out or malfunctioning heavy equipment parts.

Besides these steps, it is recommended to use proper viscosity oils. It is a surprisingly common problem that OEM recommended quality and viscosity grades are not used with consistency. At Tornado Heavy Equipment Parts, we offer high-quality heavy equipment loaders and parts at reasonable prices, making your maintenance and repairs more affordable. Feel free to contact us at 1.844.202.0123 for more information or write to us.