Keeping safety first and productivity high is the ultimate goal of any maintenance program.

By Debbie McClung

Mines and quarries represent some of the most demanding conditions for wheel loaders. Ground-engaging tools, engines, cooling systems, and tires endure long hours in challenging terrain handling abrasive materials. Many work areas are congested with multiple machines that are loading material into trucks, crushers, and plant hoppers, as well as sorting and stockpiling — often moving finished materials from one end of a facility to another.

Routine daily maintenance and good pre- and post-use inspections are critical for maintaining your wheel loader.

There can be little margin for error in these busy environments, and the last thing an operator needs to worry about is a machine that isn’t prepared to perform from the ground up. To safely and productively maneuver a wheel loader on these jobsites requires diligent attention to a manufacturer’s recommended maintenance program and manuals, and following additional guidelines established by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

“Routine daily maintenance and good pre- and post-use inspections on a wheel loader are critical to keeping safety first and productivity high,” says Chad Ellis, Doosan product manager.

Ground-engaging tools

Loading and unloading aggregate eight to 10 hours a day can create excessive wear on a machine’s ground-engaging tools. To ensure these high-impact tools stay in peak operating condition, fleet maintenance managers need to perform daily visual inspections of buckets with a keen eye to loose, cracked, or missing teeth and repairing or replacing compromised components as soon as possible.

A wheel loader’s attachments, such as buckets and pallet forks, are some of the most popular and hard-working tools in mining and quarry applications and deserve the same attention as the machine itself. Visual checks of these components should include hoses and tilt-and-lift cylinders to determine if wear is developing or damage has occurred.

There are other items on bigger buckets that have a working life as well. The operator should look at the condition of wear plates and bolted-on cutting edges, as well as attachment pins, to make certain they fit snug and properly.

Tires

Radial tires are commonly used on wheel loaders in mines and quarry operations for their durability and high bias properties that provide performance in all weather conditions. However, rough terrain can be extra punishing on tires over time if they have undetected leaks or are not properly inflated. Those responsible for equipment fleets should check their wheel loader’s maintenance manual for the proper psi and inflate the tires accordingly. “In addition to the correct pressure, routine maintenance and inspection of tires would not be complete without a thorough visual inspection to make sure no sizeable chunks of tread are missing and that the bead line and the rim are intact,” Ellis says.

Brakes

One of the most important routine maintenance procedures required on a wheel loader is properly working brakes — at all times. Due to the nature of extracting an underground product, some mines and aggregate processing facilities have aggressive grades and often congested work spaces. For these reasons, operators must be able to stop their equipment and hold it with the machine’s parking brake whenever necessary.

MSHA Title 30 CFR 56.14101 states, “Self-propelled mobile equipment shall be equipped with a service brake system capable of stopping and holding the equipment with its typical load on the maximum grade it travels.” The federal regulation, available online at http://www.msha.gov/30cfr/56.14101.htm, also provides a table for evaluating the performance of service brakes.

Driveline

Ellis states that wheel loaders may frequently travel through a wash pool typically found in larger concrete plants or quarries to remove slush or material buildup. “The driveline needs to be checked periodically to make sure there’s no leaking at the seals and that axles are protected. It’s better to take the time to catch a small failure before it becomes a catastrophic failure,” Ellis adds.

Fluids, oils, filters

According to Shane Reardon, Doosan wheel loader product specialist, fluids such as engine oil and coolants are key elements to engine compartment maintenance.

Reardon says equipment managers should complete fluid checks using dipsticks and sight glasses, and refer to their operator’s manual for instructions on filling their machine with the appropriate fluid in the correct increments at the recommended intervals. He also suggests that maintenance technicians resist the urge to use non-OEM specified filters. “It’s important to make sure you’re getting the best filtration properties and monitoring the same quality performance over the course of recommended maintenance intervals,” Reardon says.