Gearbox on FST Life

2 posts tagged Gearbox. Read the guide: Mechanical Repair vs. Maintenance.

• 

  Neal Wareing

  Field service technician and founder, FindFST

  10 Dec 2026

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  16 motors and gearboxes swapped out. Commissioning time, then I spotted it...

  Transport plugs still in. All 16 of them. Gearboxes get hot. Oil expands. Transport plug fitted means pressure has nowhere to go. New gearbox written off before it's run a full shift. Easy fix: swap in a breather plug. Five minute check. Thousands saved.

  

  • Field Service
  • Industrial Maintenance
  • Gearbox
• 

  Neal Wareing

  Field service technician and founder, FindFST

  15 Oct 2026

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  The limit switches on this gearbox exist for one reason. To stop it destroying itself.

  A fault was suspected on them. Instead of troubleshooting it, someone unplugged them and carried on. Classic... No fault. No protection. Just a gearbox running blind with nothing to stop it going past its limits. Some people treat safety devices like they're the problem. They're not the problem. They're the thing standing between a five minute fix and a week of downtime, or worse. Bypassing a safety device isn't a fix. It's a debt. And eventually someone pays it.

  

  • Limit switches
  • Safety devices
  • Gearbox
  • Field service technician