Testimonials
Pyroshield® Syn Open Gear Grease significantly improved lubrication intervals and reduced costs for Northport Sdn Bhd.
key takeaways
Challenge
Frequent greasing every 250 hours led to significant downtime and high costs for lubricant and labor, as the grease used by Northport was ineffective under heavy loads and extreme conditions, necessitating constant regreasing of the twistlock.
LE solution
By using Pyroshield® Syn Open Gear Grease (5182), Northport can extend their lubrication interval from 250 to 2,250 hours, offering superior protection for equipment in harsh conditions and high temperatures.
Results
Switching to Pyroshield 5182 grease reduced Northport’s lubrication costs from MYR 33,516 to MYR 24,320 and decreased downtime from 342 hours to 76 hours over a 2,250-hour period.
After 2,250 hours, they found that the Pyroshield grease did perform as promised.
Customer Profile
Northport Sdn Bhd is one of the largest multipurpose ports of its kind in the national ports system, offering dedicated facilities and services to handle a wide variety of cargoes ranging from containers to cars. It can handle break bulk cargoes and has the capacity to handle liquid and dry bulk cargoes of all types and shipment sizes. Northport has been in business since 1901 and has been an LE customer since 2013.
Application
Northport uses a Bromma Spreader Eh 132 with twistlock for container carrying.
Challenge
The spreader required frequent greasing of every 250 hours, which contributed to significant downtime and excessive lubricant and labour costs. The grease that Northport was using was not staying in place due to the heavy loads and extreme conditions. The twistlock had to be regreased frequently to ensure the equipment was properly protected against wear.
LE Solution
The LE distributor recommended Pyroshield® Syn Open Gear Grease (5182), which would enable Northport to extend their lubrication interval from 250 hours to 2,250 hours, while still providing protection for their equipment.
LE’s Pyroshield 5182 is a heavy-duty synthetic lubricant developed for large unshrouded open gears in the mining, mineral processing and cement industries, and for other severe service applications that require a lubricant with superior wear protection, exceptional load-carrying ability, outstanding tackiness and ease of application at various temperatures. It also works well for applications in which gears experience high point-of-contact temperatures of 327°C and above. Pyroshield 5182 is formulated with high-viscosity synthetic base oil, a non-melting thickening system and LE’s proprietary heat stable additives. It contains a synergistic mix of Almasol®, LE’s exclusive wear- reducing additive, and a unique combination of extreme pressure additives.
Results
After implementing the switch in early 2014 to Pyroshield 5182 on all 38 of its spreader units, Northport technicians tested grease samples from the twistlock every 250 hours to evaluate its ability to stay in place and provide protection as promised.
After 2,250 hours, they found that the Pyroshield grease did perform as promised. The much longer lubrication interval made the LE grease cost less over time. Lubricating 38 spreader units with four application points per unit, the total cost of grease plus labour for the old grease was MYR 33,516, while it was MYR 24,320 for the Pyroshield grease.
In addition to these savings, there were 342 total hours of downtime for regreasing when using the previous grease. After switching to Pyroshield grease, there were only 76 hours of downtime for the same 2,250-hour period of operation.