reduction unit?

[bandkiller]

What do you guys think on the reduction unit? Which one is better for COLD climate conditions? Belt or gear? And if belt long or short? I was told that I should go with the belt because the oil in the gear has a hard time in the cold. If anybody is running in alaska or minesota or any other COLD places I would like to know what you guys like and dislike. Thanks

 

[Alaskanairbtr]

Up here in Alaska the majority of us run belt reductions . I've personally ran mine at 0* to -20* below without any problems . As far as gear reductions go , I don,t see why you can't run a synthetic oil or gear lube in it for cold weather . You should talk to the manufacture and see what they recommend . In our work trucks w/ temps as low as -40 to -50 below rear ends and transmissions don't like to move w/ regular gear lube , but synthetic fixes that!

 

[COLD]

I work at an airport and You probably just went through that -38 degree F spurt we just had (Alaskan). We have helical gear drop boxes on lots of stuff. I prefer using Synthetic 75/90 but most of the stuff has regular 80/90W gear oil in them. The input is at the top of the box usually turning about 3000 rpm in a heavy load application. We generally get about 20000 hours of abuse out of them before rebuild. We keep toothed belts in stock for our superchargers, but I have nothing against belts either!

I should add we usually think - 20F (-29C) is pretty nice and there is no need to plug your vehicle block heater in even! :lol:

 

[Alaskanairbtr]

I should add we usually think - 20F (-29C) is pretty nice and there is no need to plug your vehicle block heater in even! :lol:

LOL thats funny.... lots of people that are not used to it think that any thing below 32* is cold . When you are used to working or being out in -40* ambient temp w/ the wind blowing and it warms up to zero , thats a heat wave 8) heck we just came out of a cold snap , warmed up to 18* sweating like crazy LOL

As far as gear driven "any thing" goes I have never seen a gear break cause it was cold , but I have seen belts snap in the cold .

 

[Airboatcapt2]

my vote is on the Belt Drive, I think it is the best way to go!

 

[COLD]

On the bearing end of things, we get probably 4 times the life out of bearings running in gear oil compared to grease. For instance we have 4 to 5 foot diameter engine driven centrifugal fans that run up to 4000 rpm and the ones running in grease don't run as long. 8)

 

[COLD]

I guess the most important thing about running anything in the cold is a bit of warm up time. Rod on it with oil or grease at below Zero temps and failure or service life is jeopardized. We also used to run 4 inch Goodyear long belts and the only failure I can recall was because not enough tension because the bearings went out. :wink:

 

[Olf Art]

Cold, you're right. Bigkavr (Brian) says he'll sometimes start his engine and let it idle while he's on the way so that it will have a chance to warm up before he gets to the river. Probably helps his gas mileage too .... 8) .

olf