Last Minute Spring Equipment Care

Remembering to take a few extra steps in equipment care before hitting the field can pay dividends come planting season. 
Last-minute care before spring planting will mean more reliable equipment performance and can help avoid costly downtime. Andrew Hamilton, CHS director of marketing for lubricants, shares some important tips.

Hamilton: “We have the equipment sitting for long periods of time and if they haven’t changed the oil in the engine or hydraulics or transmission or any of those areas you can build a lot of moisture up, a lot of water condensation in there along with the acids that come from the diesel being burned and you have other contaminants that get in there. They can cause a problem for the oil and especially if the oil has been sitting around for quite awhile.”
Often a farmer will go into to store and just grab grease off the shelf because of the familiar color or particular prices. Hamilton warns it is critical to be sure that the grease is compatible with what you have at home.
Hamilton: “A grease is made up of three materials -- base oil, thickener and performance additives. The thickener is really what determines whether two greases can work together. Typically we want to make sure we keep greases together that have same thickener. So they might look for a word on the the grease cartilage that says lithium, or calcium or polyurea. If we grab two greases with have different thickeners there is a very strong possibility that those greases will start to attack each other and actually break each other down and they will no longer be able to lubricate the way we expect them to in the equipment.”