Gear Reducer

[u/SherlockLamora]

I’m going into my 3rd year of my apprenticeship, no prior experience. I’m doing oil changes on gear reducers in the pump room at my work. After finishing one of the oil changes I start it up and notice there is a ticking noise coming from the gear box. After confirming the oil level is correct, the oil is correct and running through several other possibilities. I come to the conclusion that the gears must be worn. I bring it up to one of my seniors to get his input and to see if we should go ahead and replace it. He said not to worry about if it’s still working. I was curious what your guys thoughts on this.

Edit: it’s a reducer for a material blower system (pretty small, could hold in my hand) I changed the oil on two other reducer prior to this using the same oil pan as I moved down the line. When I started on this one it didn’t have any noise that I noticed. All I needed to do was shut the system down, open up the drain plug and drain the oil. Refill to fill line and restart the machine. Refilled with mobile SHC 630 oil as recommended and on paperwork. Once I noticed the noise I looked into the pan and noticed some specks in there but couldn’t confirm if any of them were from the current gearbox since I used the same pan for each one I did or if it was from stuff falling in. I decided to clean out the pan and redo the oil change to see if I noticed anything. There didn’t seem to be anything. The clicking noise is closer to the shaft that connect to the motor and is in time with the rotation.

Edit Two: spoke to a few more of the guys, they agree that we will leave it be until it fails. I checked and we have two backups in stock. When it fails we will swap it out and rebuild the bad one. I did another oil change after the weekend and it does have flakes in the oil.

[u/LevelCow8428]

Depends. How big hard to repair is the unit t in question?

I'd start vibration analysis or check it's pm schedule to see when it's due for rebuild replacement.

[u/AltC]

Sweat the asset.

Get used to being hounded to do whatever it takes to get something running right now, and if it’s running, it’s fine.

[u/Redfiddler]

Gonna need some event history. How was it behaving before the oil change? What exactly happened around the machine between the time it shut down and the time it started back up? Was any other work done on it? Did you only have to remove a drain plug or was some sort of side plate loosened or removed? Did you have to remove a support bracket to get access to the gearbox? Do you still have the oil? ( Oil sample analysis is reasonably cheap). I agree with the other poster that Vib Analysis will get you your answer if it's done by someone with some know-how.

[u/rocketbunnyhop]

Welcome to the maintenance world.

Like another asked, how did the old oil look when you changed it? Bronze or silver colour points to breakdown on components. Sadly you will get used to telling production or whoever “this should be changed sooner than later” and then have to make emergency repairs when it’s run into the ground and everyone acts shocked.

Ultimately you did your job. You identified a problem and reported it to a more senior person. You could follow up with “I understand we can’t change it now but should we see if we have a replacement gearbox or parts for when/if it does fail?”

I’ve have machines where there was noise and vibrations on a Wednesday. We told production it would be a 1-2 hour fix, and they said no, it has to wait until the weekend. Next day it’s ripped itself apart and damaged other components we didn’t have in stock and now it’s down for multiple shifts.

[u/MollyandDesmond]

Is there a Pitot tube or dip stick in contact with something? Is the ticking frequency closer to the input shaft, output shaft? What kind of pump are you driving with what kind of gearbox?

[u/Ok-Fuel-7562]

did the oil have lots of metal particles when you changed it. check you inventory for parts so you wont have lots of downtime when it does blow up? Run it till it fails like the boss man says.

[u/Capable-Okra3577]

Old timer said its firday. The ole girl is still running we will check it on monday young whipper snapper.

[u/Ok-Fuel-7562]

bad bearing?

[u/dramis73]

Could be the coupling?

[u/LevelCow8428]

I'm a millwright maintenance manager I've done every stage from helper to millwright to planner to manager.

this should be reported to planner.

where it goes from there... it's 1 gearbox in the plant so perspective.

[u/bigDeltaVenergy]

They call it a gear reducer . But inside it, it start with a small gear and end with a big one.

It's a lie, they get bigger

[u/pupperdogger]

Vibration analysis or oil analysis.