Quick Tips for Maintaining your Salt Spreader
When the forecast is calling for snow and slippery roads and walkways, the last thing you want is to be stuck waiting for your salt spreader to be fixed. But if you don’t take good care of your equipment, that’s exactly what could happen.
The good news is that there’s some basic maintenance you can do for your spreader to extend its life and avoid issues that could land it in the shop.
We’ll walk you through a couple of tasks for maintaining your salt spreader so you can keep it in peak condition and stay moving.
1. Counteract corrosion
This is one of the most important aspects of proper salt spreader maintenance. The salt that your hopper carries will make your equipment corrode if it’s left to sit there.1
Therefore, it’s important that for every job you run your hopper completely dry before bringing it home. After that, you’ll want to give it a good cleaning. Using water and a pressure washer should be sufficient.2
Need replacement spray nozzle tips or a new pressure washer pump? The ROP Shop can help.
2. Get going with grease
This can be a fairly involved process. All the moving parts of your hopper (think augers, bearings, chains, conveyors, rollers, and spinners) are going to need lubrication from time to time. Specific needs will vary depending on your precise salt spreader.
However, after every 10 hours of use, you might want to lubricate the bearings on the idler, spinner, and drive shafts; grease the bearings on the input shaft after every 50 hours of use. Furthermore, you’ll want to use dielectric grease on any electrical connections to help protect them.3
Final thoughts on maintaining your salt spreader
Keeping your salt spreader clean and well lubricated will go a long way towards extending its life. In turn, you’ll be able to stay focused on snow and ice removal instead of worrying about repairs and unexpected downtime due to broken equipment.
However, let’s face it. No matter how well you maintain your salt spreader, you may experience issues. In the wise words of Forrest Gump, “It happens. Sometimes.” But you shouldn’t let that deter you from doing what you can to take good care of your spreader.
If your controller box is the problem, The ROP Shop has a large inventory of snowplow parts and accessories and might just have what you need to get your spreader up and running again.
Have questions? Let us know! You can call us, email, or chat with us on our website.
You can also check out our other snow removal blogs. Now that you’ve mastered salt spreader maintenance, why not learn about the basics of salt application?
[REVISED 3/2023]
Having trouble using your ROP Shop pressure washer surface cleaner? These tips can help you out.
Thinking about getting a pressure washer? Here are eight advantages to owning a pressure washer to help convince you.