Does anyone know if it needs to be greased regularly or any other routine maintenance that needs to be performed?
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Does anyone know if it needs to be greased regularly or any other routine maintenance that needs to be performed?
usually the only thing that needs to be replaced are the brushes and that's even after hundreds of hours (if not more) of use...
In the few years I've been here, and reading pretty much all that has been written about the PC7424XP, I cannot recall reading anything about such.
But that doesn't mean your questions and thoughts aren't valid ones that do not hold some serious consideration.
I've never popped open my own PC D/A, but one day may. But I have once popped open my Baby Griots 3" D/A the second time out, of what I felt was some more additional noise, and rough running from the first time I used it.
And yep, what I found, was two Motor Brushes cracked in half, and was lucky that it came with an additional spare pair of brushes. It looked like they may have been damaged upon installation at the factory, that they came partially out when closing and buttoning up the two main housing halves.
But to get onto what else I noticed upon opening the unit, was a Pinion Gear Drive Set that was as dry as a bone, with a lot of grease just slung out of the way of the Gears. No doubt caused by centrifugal force and heat, and while there was plenty of grease inside the case, it appeared none of it was doing the gears any good as far as protection, and perhaps as well the noise levels of operation when running.
I entirely removed all of the factory grease, questioning its quality, as this was an unknown, and replaced this lubricating grease with a like amount of full synthetic Permatex Super Lube Grease fortified with PTFE.
(in truth, the factory grease may have possibly had similar qualities to Super Lube, but like I said, this was an uncertainty)
The machine worked much better, seen the somewhat design flaw of how the brushes could pop out while re-assembling, and addressed that issue. The machine then ran smooth, and suspect the major issue was the cracked brushes. The re-lube certainly didn't hurt.
I would suspect the Porter Cable D/A has a similar basic construction inside like the Griots in regards to the Gear Set Design and mechanics of operation.
Thus with all this being said, and if a person feels they have both the mechanical, and electrical expertise to open up the Porter Cable machine to inspect, and to possibly check things like lubricants, and possibly re-lube, I myself see no harm, and in fact may help the machine operate more smoothly, run cooler due to greases being where they should be, and by inspection, possibly finding other assembly snafus which could head off premature failure.
I would think too, that like the Griots 3" DA, the PC DA may also eventually "fling" it's protecting lubricants around inside the case, and again the gears would be getting little to none of the lubricant's protection benefits.
I also think that with such machines, it is also not wise to leave such machines to bake away in really hot garages, or sheds during summer months, that heat may cause lubricants to soften, and then move away from the gears possibly.
Hope my ideas have some merit.
Your thoughts are exactly inline with my thoughts. So may take it apart now that winter is approaching in MA. Thank you for sharing, much appreciated!
I would like to add though, the old verbage, "That if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
That if you are the original owner since new, and that the machine appears to be operating fine, no unusual things to note from past use and memory, then I'd say not to tear the machine apart. Not unless you think such is warranted, and that you possibly have many hundreds of hours of use on it.
If you've only maybe done a 1/2 dozen vehicles with it, it should still be fine I would think.
While the PC certainly isn't a swiss watch that will fly apart in a 100 pieces when opening the machine up, still, a person, possibly due to inexperience with the machine and its assembly could possibly do more harm than good.
I definitely felt there was an issue with my Griots DA, (and I was correct) and while I could've simply sent it back for free replacement, the shipping costs to them would've been on my dime.
I have two 1st gen 7424 machines that I absolutely love. One is from 2007, and the other 2006. They were both new old stock that I picked up last year. One of them runs smooth, cool, and quiet. The other is a little rough. I plan on repacking the grease on the noisier one. It also gets really hot at the spindle. I bought some 3M 20206 (I think) 5" back plates to help mitigate the heat.
A 7424xp does the bulk of my work, and in six years hasn't had any issues.
My Porter Cable runs as good as the day I first used it.
If it ain't broke I'm not going to fix it.
My 3" Girots Mini though is another story.
Seems to vibrate a lot and gets super hot very quickly when using speed 6.
I'm hesitant to take it apart because of the "life time wartanty" but if replacing the brushes and lubing the gears would fix it, then maybe worth the risk.
Shipping from Canada is expensive, so my risk is a little higher.
Does anyone have a blow up drawing of the internals of the Girots Mini or the Rupes equivalent?