Page 16 - December 2022 Track N Times

TECHNICAL TRAINING

Unintended Circumstances By Chris Kohnen, Technical Services

Everyone likes to take pride in keeping one’s ma-
chine working and looking its best. For it reflects the work
of many individuals, as it journeys along the tracks. This is no
simple feat. This requires time, effort, and other resources
to enable a crew to make this happen. What if…. during our
pursuit of keeping our machines looking their best, with the
best of intentions in mind, we may have unknowingly created
unforeseen issues or an unintended circumstance.

You may be wondering where I am going with this.
An unintended circumstance is an outcome of an idea or
plan, which is unexpected or predicted to have occurred.
This outcome can be positive or negative, in this article I will
be focusing on the latter. Hopefully in the following example
I can clearly express the point that I am trying to make for
your consideration.

A common job that needs to get done before a ma-
chine is painted, is to wash it. This may include the use of
soaps, degreasers, solvents, or in some cases an industrial
cleaner depending on the job. We have filled out a proper 5-
step, gathered the necessary supplies, PPE, read the cleaner
directions/labels, prepped the area that we are cleaning, and
notified others that are not directly involved with our task.
We begin to wash the machine and with a little time and ef-
fort we have completed washing the machine. Remarkably
the machine looks almost new again. Everything is good, right? The short answer is yes, for the time being. Unfortu-
nately, the reality is, we have been finding that the correct answer is NO.

Have you noticed or wondered why we are seeing more nuisance hydraulic leaks, intermittent electrical
issues, items that are tougher to get apart and take longer to service? This is partially due to the result of an unin-
tended circumstance of the example given above. It will take some time to show up, a couple of months to a couple
of years. We have failed to consider other components such as hydraulic manifolds, electrical junction boxes, elec-
trical connectors, and compartments above or below the deck. These components get exposed to the same clean-
ing products we used to clean the sides of the machine that runs through any openings in the deck or junction pan-
el.

Soaps leave residue if not thoroughly rinsed off, the residue will attract new contaminates leading to corro-

sion especially around electrical connectors and terminal strips. Degreasers and solvents can make plastic parts brit-
tle and even make them soft or spongy. In addition, they also dry out hydraulic hoses, o-rings, and cause the rubber
materials to break apart or crack. Last, but not least are industrial cleaners. They can remove protective coatings
from fittings, nuts, and bolts causing them to rust up fairly quickly. The worst part of industrial cleaners is that some
of them attack aluminum components. It gets wicked up between sealing surfaces of hydraulic valves creating pits

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