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What price freedom? Freedom<br />
from the weekly chore of<br />
greasing a truck, that is. And<br />
the price? Around $3,000, if it comes in<br />
the form of a central automatic greasing<br />
system or “auto-greaser.”<br />
An auto-greaser is a device on the<br />
back of a truck that squirts minute<br />
amounts of grease into all the greaseable<br />
points—slack adjusters, brake components,<br />
king pins, spring pin bushings,<br />
PEACEFUL EASY FEELING: ... of knowing<br />
your truck’s greasing itself regularly.<br />
Metal Health<br />
shop talk The ABCs of auto-greasers. By Duff McCutheon<br />
fifth wheel, etc.—every couple of hours<br />
or at whatever interval you choose to set<br />
the device’s timer at.<br />
“When you’ve got one installed, it gives<br />
you the warm and fuzzy feeling that the<br />
truck is always greasing itself,” says Mike<br />
Hopper, fleet maintenance manager with<br />
Moncton, N.B.’s Armour Transport.<br />
“Speaking from a mechanic’s viewpoint,<br />
with an auto-greaser, whether you set it at<br />
every hour-and-a-half to three hours, you<br />
FOR<br />
MOREINF<br />
<strong>In</strong> <strong>Gear</strong><br />
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:<br />
A.L.S. Vogel Ltd.<br />
Burlington, Ont.<br />
905-631-1821<br />
Toll-free 800-207-LUBE<br />
www.autolube.com<br />
Groeneveld North America<br />
CPL Systems <strong>In</strong>c.<br />
Campbellville, Ont.<br />
905-875-3206<br />
800-263-1760<br />
www.cplsystems.com<br />
Lubriquip Centralized Lubrication<br />
Systems<br />
Grease Jockey<br />
Cleveland, OH.<br />
1-800-USA-LUBE<br />
www.lubriquip.com<br />
�<br />
know moving parts are getting a shot of<br />
grease. There is a nice feeling about that.”<br />
Most of them work the same: the grease<br />
sits in a canister and a spring or a plunger<br />
forces it down to a pump that sends the<br />
grease to your lines and injectors. They<br />
also feature a timer device to deliver the<br />
grease on schedule, and a metering system<br />
in the distribution manifolds to ensure<br />
each fitting gets the proper amount of<br />
grease. Slack adjusters, for example, need<br />
less grease than the fifth-wheel plate. The<br />
systems mete out the grease in amounts<br />
suitable to the application.<br />
There’re a couple of different ways of<br />
looking at ROI here. One involves money<br />
and the other involves the time you save<br />
every weekend not having to grease your<br />
truck—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing<br />
if you’re a do-it-yourselfer that enjoys getting<br />
dirty. One of the benefits of getting<br />
out the grease gun and going under is that<br />
you’re inspecting the truck on a regular<br />
basis and can catch small problems<br />
before they get big. Although there’s a big<br />
difference between greasing your truck in<br />
July and doing it in January, and you<br />
might wish you had that auto-greaser for<br />
the latter.<br />
The systems generally cost between<br />
$2,500 and $3,500.<br />
MARCH 2006 69
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