A large metal recycling facility in South Carolina needed an Ameridrives U3440 U-Joint repaired quickly on its 5000 HP auto shredder. A piece of unshreddable material hit the machine’s rotating hammer, causing the U-joint’s bearing cap to fail. In the case of a jam, the shaft’s bearing cap is designed to fail in order to protect the more expensive motor, drive shaft and rotor components.

Downtime on the large shredder is very costly and the customer needed to have the equipment back in service fast. The facility quickly contacted Ameridrives on a Friday morning to find out how long it would take to repair the U-joint. Ameridrives assured the customer that the emergency repair could be performed in a matter of hours. Armed with the original drawing of the shaft that was sold to the shredder OEM, Ameridrives was confident they could meet the challenge.

The customer removed the shaft and loaded it on a dedicated truck that immediately headed out to the Ameridrives facility in Erie, Pennsylvania. When the truck arrived at the plant, a team of waiting Ameridrives technicians quickly unloaded the shaft and dis-assembled the knuckles and damaged area. A comprehensive inspection was performed, including a non-destructive test to be sure the shaft’s yokes were not cracked.

The dedicated Ameridrives team began working over the weekend to repair the damaged section of the yoke and replace all the bearing assemblies on both ends of U-joint. The shaft was repainted while still “warm” and loaded onto the truck that had been waiting in the Ameridrives parking lot while work was completed. The repaired “as new” shaft arrived at the customer’s facility by mid-afternoon on Sunday and the shredder was back in operation on Monday. The customer was extremely appreciative of the Ameridrives team for completing the 30-hour weekend turnaround.

Highlights
• 30-hour weekend repair turnaround
• Full inspection, including a NDT performed
• Yoke repaired and all bearing assemblies replaced
• Delivered in “as new” condition

On March 27, 2023, Altra Industrial Motion was acquired by Regal Rexnord Corp. Learn more about this here.