My foreman told me to always check the governor rope tension first on a noisy traction job. He was right, saved me a whole afternoon.

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, that's solid advice. My buddy had a screaming motor on a job last month, was ready to tear into the controller. I just happened to ask if he'd checked the rope tension... he hadn't. Thing was so loose it was slapping the sheave. Tightened it up and the noise just stopped. He felt like a genius for about five minutes, then bought me a coffee for saving him from his own wild goose chase.

tylerj892mo ago

Hold on now, sometimes that "wild goose chase" is exactly what you need. Jumping straight to the simple fix can make you miss a deeper problem, like a failing bearing that just got quiet for a week. I've seen guys chase a noise with a tension wrench only to have the whole motor lock up later because the real issue was hidden. A full check might take longer, but it finds the root cause.

joel_hall172mo ago

But what if the deeper problem is just a loose rope like @drew55 said? Not every noise means the whole motor is about to die.