Selecting the Right Lubricant for Knuckle Boom Slides

Select the right lubricant for knuckle boom slides. Why is the right lubricant important for your knuckle boom slides? Because of premature slide wear of course! We have been in business for over 15 years in the Simcoe County’s area and one of the key things we see with knuckle boom maintenance is people forget to lubricate their slides. However, selecting the right lubricant for knuckle boom slides is the key. In one instance, we found this 4 section extension boom so worn out, do you know why? It turns out that the operator was using Lithium Grease to lubricate the booms. Why was this bad? It created high cycles which left the low leaving slide surfaces graphite to separate from the lubricant. This created excessive heat results which in this case the metal of the boom wore out. In this case, the laminations and wear at the weld created premature wear so the slides needed to be replaced. To prevent premature wear, a different lubrication should have been used. At Crane Tech we sell Lube-A-Boom. Why is this lubrication different? It reduces friction where other lubrications are like sand paper to lifting equipment. We highly recommend using Lube-A-Boom for all sliding boom applications. We always have Lube-A-Boom in stock as we supply many crane operators and fleet customers with this superior “brewed for booms” product. Call us today to place your order! Also read our next blog that outlines why Lube-A-Boom is the best slide lubricant available hands down!