Techy tip
Bernhard’s Technical Training Manager, Ben Taylor, says that regular maintenance will save you money!
He’s off on one again! This time it’s manufacturers warranties that are the target of Terrain Aeration’s David Green, our resident grump
I pay for, and require, good products first time, every time. I purchase from approved dealerships and big name manufacturers, I do not buy from E-bay or backstreet discount dealers or buy second hand because I need quality, reliability and a good backup service. When I get delivery of a faulty part it costs me far more than the part is worth in labour time, hassle and delays. Take a recently delivered diesel fuel filter assembly, which cost just £20.00. Labour time alone to isolate and cure the manufacturing fault on that part cost me £75. Returning it under warranty would have delayed the build of my new machine for ten days or so. Fortunately, I was able to fix the fault after a lot of messing about. Repeated exhaust muffler failures on
my machinery have been blamed, by the supplier, on vibration, with no basis in fact to make that claim. Probably quite wrongly, I accepted that this was a problem unique to my application. Were there any helpful hints from the supplier as to an alternative exhaust system to overcome the problems? No, the supplier was happy to keep sending replacement parts at about £75.00 a time. They were not under warranty and just kept failing again and again! After trying various bodges, involving
flexible pipe work and different mountings, I copied, more in desperation than hope, the exhaust system layout on another larger engine that I have had in use for some considerable time. The result was a complete cure of the problem, thereby kicking the supplier’s vibration theory into touch. This change cost me about an extra £120.00 in parts per machine to implement, but finding and solving the cause of the problem cost several hundreds of pounds in labour time, replacements and machine downtime. While on the subject of failing
exhausts, one of my petrol engines used
to shed exhausts with expensive and infuriating regularity. Again, the fault was excluded from warranty because it was said to be due to vibration. I changed the design of the muffler, promptly invalidating the whole engine warranty, by replacing the supplied lightweight exhaust mounting flanges with parts that I fabricated from good steel that was twice the thickness of the originals.
The replacement flanges were welded in place, not with the tiny welds of the original but with full depth proper welds. At the same time I beefed up the exhaust mounting studs on the engine, from the original 8mm to 10mm, because some of the originals had failed and had had to be drilled out by an expensive specialist. Since this warranty invalidating
modification I have had no more failures. This success came only after replacing several mufflers at £75.00 each, which just goes to show the feeble and cheapskate nature of the original muffler design. Sorting out the problems on these
four engines and their control systems, which cost together more than £10,000, has cost me well in excess of £750 or about 7.5% of the engine purchase costs.
I am just a layman trying to build some reliable equipment for my small business. I really do not need professional engine companies and suppliers casting me adrift to engineer my own solutions to their design problems by excluding my complaints under their much trumpeted warranty schemes. I am happy to report that all four Honda petrol engines I have fitted this year have gone into service without any problems whatsoever - straight from the box - which is as it should be for all engines. Well done Honda, just a pity you do not make small diesel engines!
I really do not need professional engine companies and suppliers casting me adrift to engineer my own solutions to their problems!
WITH the credit crunch well and truly here, this months tip is aimed a showing how regular maintenance can help us save money.
We all know the time old saying “a stitch in time saves nine” and, from my experience working in a large machinery dealer, the saying could not be truer. Every day I would be quoting for repairs to machines which, had the basic maintenance been carried out, would not have been needed. Then there wouldn’t have been any need for customers to get irate and scream down the phone at me when they received the bill!
We all are aware of the reasons why we change engine oil filters on a machine and most of us (??) follow regular service intervals for replacing them. It is strange then, that we let things such as a noisy roller bearing pass us by without any action. Instead of paying just a few pounds for a new bearing, we end up having to pay a couple of hundred for a complete new roller when that noisy bearing collapses and takes out the roller shaft, seals and housings with it.
It’s also a common myth that the more we grind cutting units, the quicker the cylinders and bottom blades wear out. In fact, it’s actually quite the opposite. If we grind regularly, we keep the cutting blades sharp and even. This means we have no need to run the units with a heavy contact. This, in turn, means that we get no heat build up on the blades which causes wear and damage to the main components. When the blades go dull on a unit that’s ground regularly, a light grind is all that is required to bring back perfectly sharp edges to the cylinder and bottom blade. With a unit that has been running heavy contact, we have to grind the cylinder longer and more aggressively to remove the damage and uneven wear. This results in us removing more material from the cylinder and more often than not, having to replace the bottom blade.
So, next time your mower develops a new squeak or rattle, it’s worth investigating. A minor problem now could end up being a major, expensive problem a few weeks down the line!
Grumpy
old Git!
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