Optimizing Lubrication Maintenance for Overrunning Clutches

Overrunning clutches, also known as freewheel clutches, are a critical component of many power transmission systems. In overrunning applications, the clutch transmits torque in one direction to a connected gear, sprocket, pulley, or driven shaft.

Ongoing lubrication maintenance is one of the most difficult challenges with overrunning clutches, which are often used in heavy duty applications such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining.

To ensure a long, effective running life for a clutch, it needs to have regular lubrication maintenance—some applications may even require maintenance multiple times a month. However, it might not be easy to stop production and assign personnel to conduct the maintenance. Also, the clutch might be hard to reach, which could cause longer downtimes.

These challenges to regular lubrication maintenance might make it more likely that the clutch maintenance schedule isn’t met, and the clutch performance falters as a result. That could bring about more downtime in the long term, as the clutch fails earlier and more often than expected.

A Solution to Lubrication Maintenance Challenges

If you are looking for a solution to optimize your clutch maintenance practices, Tsubaki’s PBUS Series clutches offer several advantages:

• Easy installation: Tsubaki’s PBUS Series clutch has a specially designed spiro-lock and ships pre-packed with synthetic grease lubrication to simplify the installation process.
• Longer maintenance cycle: The synthetic grease lubrication used in the PBUS Series clutch has a significantly longer maintenance cycle than similar clutches using oil lubrication, with most applications only requiring lubrication maintenance twice a year.
• Increased cost savings: The combination of the spiro-lock and grease lubrication minimizes the risk of lubricant leaks, offers a long service life, and maximizes the maintenance cycle to reduce costs associated with lubrication maintenance.
• Versatile applications: The PBUS allows for easy mounting of gears, pulleys, and sprockets, making it a versatile solution for many applications.
  Several Options in clutch Design

Innovative designs and features incorporated into our clutch products assure efficient and dependable operation in the harshest environments. Our cams are made with a special alloy steel to provide extended wear, increased fatigue life, and greater torque holding capacity. The races are made of high quality alloy steel with high surface hardness and core toughness, and are precision ground to provide excellent concentricity and accurate cam rotation.

Tsubaki offers a wide selection of clutches designed to fit a variety of application needs, including internal and external backstops as well as overrunning and indexing clutches.

For more information on Tsubaki’s PBUS Series clutch, click here or contact us today to request specific information from our team.