I grease them every ten hours of operation. Maybe I am not getting enough in thereIJ But it seems what I am looking at is not a friction issue, but a torque load or lever load on the pivot tube. The factory welds that are on the "front" side of the axle around the pivot tube are not cracked. The ones on the "back" (the side you can see from the rear of the combine) are the ones cracking. I would think a lack of grease would cause welds on both sides of the axle to crack. When I first saw this issue, was two weeks ago. The cracks had rust in them. I am one that will not let our equipment set outside unless it is in use. There are exposed metal on the machine that never even surface rusted over the winter. I suspect that the cracks were there and we did not notice them til now. We do quite a bit of plot work, and a number of our fields and terraces are 2 to 5 acres in size, so we do a lot of backing and turning. Very rarely do we have a full bin, unless I am doing bulk acres of corn or milo, and when I do I am very careful about turning and not jerking the machine. That is I don't shove the hydrostat full forward, and slam on the turning brake to turn around. Plus thank goodness, we dont have to worry about pivot tracks! I dealt with them for nearly 20 years. In the back of my mind I wonder if we should not have gotten a 52, but this 42 was a bargain, and we have less than 300 acres total with 4 crops. Due to this I try to be preventative on major breakdowns that we can avoid! Thanks!
