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978-368-3325
Compactors & Balers · Mechanical · M-2

A New Banging or Grinding Noise on Every Cycle

A compactor is a loud machine by nature, so the thing that matters is not volume — it is change. A noise that was not there last month means something moved, loosened or broke. The usual causes are a foreign object in the chamber, the ram bottoming, loose mounting bolts, worn pivot pins and bushings, or a structural crack. Shut it down and look rather than running through it.
Get It Looked At — 978-368-3325
All Mechanical Symptoms
Tier 1 to look with a flashlight, locked out. Tier 3 for anything structural.
First

Stop the Machine, Don't Push Through It

The instinct with a noisy compactor is to finish the container. On this symptom that instinct is usually wrong.

Stop at the end of the current stroke.

Do not start another cycle to see whether it does it again. It will.

Lock it out.

Everything below this line happens with the machine dead and the disconnect locked.

Get a flashlight.

A good one. Chamber lighting is nonexistent and the thing you are looking for is usually dark and the same colour as everything else.

Look inside the chamber first.

A pallet is the single most common answer. So are steel banding, a length of pipe, and a dropped tool.

Do not reach in.

Looking is Tier 1. Reaching into a compactor chamber is not, even locked out — especially if the ram drifts.

Reading It

What Each Sound Points At

The character of the noise narrows it before anyone opens anything.

A bang or clang, once per cycle

Usually something hard in the chamber, or the ram reaching a hard stop it should not be reaching. Both are found by looking.

Grinding

Metal against metal that should not be touching. Worn guides, a ram running out of alignment, or debris packed on the rails.

A knock with movement

Slop in a joint — worn pivot pins and bushings, or loose mounting hardware letting the whole assembly shift under load. This one gets worse quickly.

Nobody knows the machine's normal sound like your own people

The most useful diagnostic information on this symptom comes from whoever works beside the machine daily. “It started Tuesday” and “it only does it on the way out” are worth more than any description of the noise itself. Ask them before you call.
Step Two

What to Look For, Locked Out

Five minutes of looking, all from outside the machine.
  • Inside the chamber — Anything that does not belong. Pallets, banding, pipe, appliance parts. This is the answer more often than any mechanical fault.
  • The ram face and guides — Debris packed on the rails, or bright scored marks showing where metal has been running on metal.
  • Mounting bolts and anchors — Bright rust streaks or a witness mark around a bolt head means it has been moving. Loose hardware makes noise and then makes cracks.
  • Pivot pins — Visible slop at a pin joint when the ram changes direction, or elongated holes around a pin.
  • Welds and structure — Cracked paint in a straight line is often a cracked weld underneath. Photograph anything that looks like it.
Why It Matters

A Noise Is Cheap. What It Becomes Is Not.

Almost every cause on this list is small when it starts and structural when it is ignored.

A pallet in the chamber

Removed in minutes. Left in, it becomes a bent ram face, a damaged shear bar, or a bottomed ram.

Worn pins and bushings

A wear-part replacement now. Left alone, the ram runs out of alignment and starts damaging the guides and the structure around it.

Loose mounting hardware

Retorque now. Left alone, the movement cracks welds and the repair moves from a wrench to a welder on site.
Before You Call

What We Need to Quote It

You do not need all of this — the make and model plus photos is usually enough to get started. But the more of it you have, the closer the first number is to the final one.
  • Bore — Inside diameter of the barrel. Stamped on many data plates; otherwise we measure it.
  • Stroke — Fully extended length minus fully retracted length.
  • Rod diameter — Across the chrome, measured with calipers if you have them.
  • Mount type — Clevis, cross-tube, trunnion or flange — and the pin diameter.
  • Pin-to-pin retracted — Center of one mounting pin to center of the other, ram fully in.
  • Ports — Size, thread type, and whether they face the same direction or opposite.
  • Machine make and model — Off the data plate. It often tells us the cylinder before you measure anything.
  • Photos — The whole cylinder in place, both mounting ends, and a close shot of the rod.

If you can't get the measurements

Don’t climb on the machine to get them. Send the make, the model and the photos, and we will take the dimensions when the cylinder is out — or bring a replacement with us if we already know that machine.
Safety

Where Your Checking Stops

Tier 1 · Site check

Looking into the chamber with a light, machine locked out. Inspecting bolts, pins and welds from outside.

Tier 3 · Service technician

Removing an obstruction from the chamber, any pin or bushing work, retorquing structural hardware, and all welding.

Do not crack a fitting to check for pressure

Stored hydraulic energy is the hazard that makes this Tier 3 no matter how simple the repair looks. Loosening a fitting “to see if there’s still pressure in it” is how people get injection injuries — which do not look serious for the first hour and are a surgical emergency. Pressure gets relieved deliberately and confirmed at the gauge.
Applies To

Compactors and Balers Both

This fault lives in the power unit, so it behaves the same on a stationary compactor and on a vertical baler. One difference is worth naming.

On a baler

The same three questions apply to the chamber: something in it that should not be there, slop in a joint, or a structural crack. On a vertical baler add the chain — a stretched or damaged baler chain is a common source of a new noise on every stroke.
Questions We Get

New Noises, Answered

It only makes the noise when the container is full. Is that normal?
No, but it is informative. A noise that appears only under load points at something that only moves under load — slop in a joint, loose hardware, or a structural flex. It is a real fault showing itself at the point of highest stress.
Probably not for the noise. It is worth looking at the ram face and the shear bar afterwards, because a pallet that has been compacted against steel a few times can leave damage that shows up later as material hanging.
It depends entirely on what the noise is. A chamber obstruction, once removed, is finished. A knock with visible movement at a pin or a mount is not something to run for weeks — that is how ram chests and welds crack.
The chamber with the light on it, any bolt or pin that looks like it has moved, and any cracked paint on the structure. Short video with the sound is even better if it can be taken safely from outside the machine.
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T&T Weber Hydraulic Inc.
184 Stone St, Unit 5
Clinton, MA 01510

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Onsite compactor and baler service throughout New England — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Cylinder reseal and replacement, domestic replacement cylinders, hydraulic, electrical and controls, and full mechanical repair.