The day a seized bearing nearly took out my thumb in a hospital basement

I was working on an Otis elevator in the basement at St. Mary's Hospital in Portland last month. The main drive bearing seized up and the whole motor started shaking like crazy before I could hit the emergency stop. I ended up having to cut that old bearing off with a grinder because it was welded on from the heat. Has anyone else dealt with a bearing that locks up that bad on an older unit?

1 comments

1 Comment

the_nathan4h ago

Nah man, that sounds like you were asking for trouble. A seized bearing is a sign you weren't checking the lube or running the inspection cycle right. Old Otis units from the 70s have a grease port on the bearing housing that everyone forgets about. If you'd hit that with a grease gun every six months, that bearing wouldn't have welded on. You basically let it run dry until it fused itself. That grinder work was just fixing your own neglect.