[Salmon_king]

Gentlemen, I have a York 134a (YDHD-57) Compressor that had a failure of the high speed thrust bearing. All the other bearings in the set are fine and the oil pump is fine. We replaced all the bearings anyway since the machine was apart. My question is, how long should these bearings last? I feel that the bearing is not sacrificial in nature and as long as nothing unfortunate happens the bearing should last forever. Bearings of this kind are sort of like bushing style bearings where a hydrodynamic film of oil protects the components from direct contact. This bearing was badly gouged once we had a look.

We log the machine every month and the thrust reading has always remained stable. Then it just fell off. The insurance company is calling it normal wear. Is this reasonable? They have a second machine with double the hours and surge counts and it is fine.

 

[Salmon_king]

Lastly, does York have a recommended service interval for their bearings?

 

[nyrb]

Just curious here, which pads were damaged on your thrust bearing, thrust pads, counterthrust pads or both? I have had 2 similar failures, 1 minor that resulted in just a thrust bearing and 1 catastophic that resulted in JCI eating a complete rebuild under warranty, first time I ever saw a closed face wheel worn down to an open face.

 

[Salmon_king]

In this case, just the high speed was buggered. The proximity sensor would not reset. Before we tried the recal procedure we looked at the oil filter and it had some copper shavings from the thrust pads. At that point we took it apart.

 

[klove]

Full model of the chiller will be helpful to determine modification level.
No recommended bearing inspection interval.
Pressure fed hydrodynamic film bearings will last a LONG time - especially when given a little wiggle room as in the York compressors.

I'd look at the high speed drain system, stand-by lube capability, and oil delivery temps to the bearings as a starting point.

 

[Salmon_king]

Here is the model of the compressor YDHD-57 DD. Does anyone have a PDF copy of the manual? I have a scanned copy that makes it hard to search for specific text.

 

[Salmon_king]

I know this is a long shot but would anyone have an image of an undamaged York high speed thrust bearing? My customer is going through a lengthy insurance claim over this and the adjuster would like to see one before the damage we found.

I have attached a picture of the wear we found.

 

[klove]

Lack of lubrication...

 

[nyrb]

Here's what I have on hand, different style but same idea.

 

[Salmon_king]

In our case we never lost lubrication. The machine was found to be quite short of refrigerant though and one of the techs suggested that when these machines are low on gas they can develop a low side surge that might cause this sort of problem. We replaced the bearings and nothing more and the machine has been running fine since then...

 

[Salmon_king]

BTW thanks for the images. How many hours did you have on your machine?

 

[nyrb]

BTW thanks for the images. How many hours did you have on your machine?

Machine made it to 600 hours when calamity struck, JCI got to rebuild it at their cost, almost made me cry with laughter.

 

[Salmon_king]

Wow, that was fast. At least my machine made it to 30 000 hours.

 

[nyrb]

Here's a snapshot of the wheel after those 600 hours.

 

[r404a]

saw a yk do both of those things with lube failure


r404a

 

[klove]

Here's a snapshot of the wheel after those 600 hours.

Why didn't the prox probe get this thing before that much damage was done?

 

[nyrb]

Why didn't the prox probe get this thing before that much damage was done?

That's areally good question I don't have the answer to, it is although one of the components they replaced. The fault was proximity when it did finally fail but it was at -80mils by that time. JCI reset it and gave it a final run test too, didn't sound very good apparently either.