risk avoidance - Forum - Landscape Juice Network2024-03-28T14:05:54Zhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/feed/tag/risk+avoidanceTethering A Runawayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/tethering-a-runaway2018-02-17T11:20:35.000Z2018-02-17T11:20:35.000ZMike Lishhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/MikeLish<div><p>I have been specialising in stump grinding for the past 18 years throughout Anglia. Over that time period I have experienced loss of drive to the wheels on a number of occassions while on site (a real bummer) and twice while up/down loading from the van. In the past this happend through broken drive chains to the grinders live axle. More recently, loss of drive while downloading in a car park owing to a disintergrating taper lock bushing on the hydraulic motor drive sprocket. The taper lock bush was of the sintered (die-cast) type most commonly sold. These are very brittle, and great care must be taken with their installation. I was lucky on this occassion as my 850 kg runaway grinder trundled down the ramps and eventually came to a stop short of hitting anything. I have now replaced the sintered type of taper lock with a solid steel taper lock---at greater cost--- and as a further precaution, designed a tether connecting one end of the grinder to the vans tow ball as it exits down ramps. This worrying experience needed further investigation. I discovered the woodruff key did not have clearance between its inner face and the bottom of its keyway on the bush. This placed strain on the fragile bush at perhaps its weakest point --- the keyway. This is a heads up to those of you who do your own repairs or rely on outside repairers. It is an easy oversite for a repairer to quickly grab a woodruff key that seems to securely fit without checking for clearance as described earlier. This can lead to disasterous or even fatal consequences when working with heavy machinery. I eliminated the problem of broken drive chains some years ago by going over to higher tensile strength chains, and installing a chain lubricator of my own design. I have now gone over to steel taper lock bushes which used to be common place years ago, but are more difficult to find and seven times the price of sintered taper locks ( what price safety?) Lessons learned!</p></div>