Every swing of an excavator rides on one enormous bearing between the tracks and the house. It carries the cab, engine, boom and whatever the bucket holds — through dust, shock loads and 50-degree summers. Replacement runs SAR 20,000–70,000 with days of crane-assisted labor. Care costs grease.
Greasing: The Whole Game
The slew ring has two separate grease circuits, and confusing them is a classic mistake:
Purge until you see fresh grease emerge at the seals. Old grease carries the sand OUT — stingy greasing leaves it grinding inside.
Measuring Wear Before It Measures You
The Forgotten Bolts
The ring is clamped by dozens of high-tensile bolts, and they stretch. A single loose bolt overloads its neighbors and the cascade cracks the ring or the frame. Torque-check per the maintenance schedule (commonly every 1,000–2,000 hours), always with a calibrated wrench, always in the star pattern, and replace — never reuse — any bolt that has gone loose.
Pinion and Swing Motor
The swing pinion wears alongside the gear; replacing one without assessing the other invites rapid re-wear. Swing motor and gearbox share the story told by their oil — glitter there predicts pinion problems.
HESP supplies slew rings, swing pinions, motor seal kits, bolts of the correct grade, and open-gear grease for the common excavator models in the Kingdom — with lead-time honesty on the big rings so you can plan the downtime, not suffer it.
