When the belt stops, everything behind it stops too.
Conveyor work on site: tracking that has gone wrong, splices that have let go, seized idlers, and drive motors and gearboxes that quit under load. We come to the line rather than asking you to send it anywhere.
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- No hourly minimum
- What the job runs, told up front
- Shutdown and weekend windows
A conveyor is the one machine nobody can work around
Most equipment failures cost you one machine. A conveyor failure costs you the whole path. Product stacks up behind the stoppage, the crew downstream stands still, and if the belt feeds a packing line or a crusher, the clock on that lost hour runs a lot faster than the repair itself does. That is why belt calls get treated as urgent even when the actual fault turns out to be a ten minute fix.
The faults themselves are rarely exotic. Belts wander and chew their own edges against the frame. Splices open up. Idlers seize and start grinding flat spots into themselves. A drive motor overheats and trips, or a gearbox coupling goes and the motor spins happily while the head pulley does nothing. Each of those has a visible symptom, and each one has a cause further upstream than where the damage shows.
We work on conveyors as fixed machinery, alongside the hydraulic circuits and electrical systems that drive and control them. On most calls the three overlap anyway.
Calls we getA belt running hard to one side, a splice that has started to open, a squeal or knock that follows the belt around, a drive that trips its overload, or a line that will not start at all.
The numberYou hear what the job runs before anybody picks up a tool, and a short repair is billed as a short repair with no minimum tacked on.
Where the lines areWarehouses off the 80 corridor, food and wine handling through Napa, and aggregate and recycling operations around Solano. Counties and cities we cover.
Mistracking is a symptom, and chasing it is how belts get ruined
A belt that runs to one side is the most common conveyor complaint there is, and it is also the one most often treated wrongly. The instinct is to crank the take-up on the side the belt is drifting away from and watch it move back. Sometimes it does. Then it drifts again the following week, gets cranked again, and eventually the frame is pulled out of square, the belt has a rubbed and frayed edge, and the real cause is still sitting there untouched.
Belts follow the first thing they touch. Almost always that means a pulley or an idler that is no longer square to the direction of travel, and the fault sits upstream of where the belt is visibly rubbing. Material buildup on a tail pulley does the same thing, because a quarter inch of caked product on one side is enough to steer a belt off course. So does a conveyor frame that a forklift has clipped, or a structure that has settled on a soft slab.
The right sequence is to check the frame for square, clean the pulleys, check that idlers turn freely and sit perpendicular, look at loading, and only then adjust tracking. Done that way, the belt stays put. Done the other way, you buy a new belt sooner than you should have.
What breaks on a belt line
These faults feed each other. A seized idler drags, the drive works harder to pull through it, and the motor that trips its overload three weeks later gets blamed for a problem that started with a dry bearing.
Belt tracking and edge damage
Finding the pulley, idler or frame fault that is steering the belt, rather than tensioning around it until the edges are shredded.
Splice failure
Mechanical and vulcanized joints both let go eventually. Replacing the joint is straightforward; working out whether tension, a pulley diameter or impact loading killed it is the part that matters.
Idlers, rollers and bearings
Rollers that have stopped turning wear flats, gouge the belt cover and add drag to the whole run. They are cheap parts that cause expensive damage.
Drive motors
Overheating, overload trips and bearing noise, checked against actual load rather than replaced on the assumption that the motor is tired.
Gearboxes and couplings
Reducer leaks, worn couplings and shaft alignment. Our pump and gearbox work covers the same driven-equipment territory.
Controls and safety circuits
Pull cords, belt misalignment switches and zero-speed sensors. If a safety device keeps stopping the line, something is usually telling the truth.
Working on something that can start by itself
This part is not optional. A conveyor is one of the few machines in a plant that may be under automatic control, tied into a sequence, or startable from a panel in another room by somebody who has no idea anyone is working on it. Stored energy adds to that: a gravity take-up holds real weight, and an inclined belt loaded with product wants to run backward the moment a brake is released.
So every job starts with isolation. Power locked out at the disconnect, controls verified dead rather than assumed dead, take-up weights blocked or lowered, and a loaded incline secured before anyone reaches into a pinch point. It takes a few extra minutes and it is the difference between a repair and an incident report.
The same discipline applies to handing the line back. Guards go on before the belt runs again, safety switches get tested rather than bypassed and forgotten, and the conveyor runs loaded under watch before we call it done. A line that works empty and jams under product has not been fixed.
Nobody should have to wait half a day for somebody to look at a stopped line. We answer, we roll, and you know the number before we start.
Patrick Freeman, owner
Questions from maintenance crews
If your situation is close to one of these but not identical, phone it in and describe what the belt is doing. Talking through the symptom beats guessing at a match.
Our belt keeps running to one side. Why does tensioning only fix it for a week?
Because tension is almost never the cause. A belt steers off the first pulley or idler it touches that is no longer square, and material caked on one side of a tail pulley does the same thing. Adjusting take-up masks that for a few days and then the belt drifts again, and the frame ends up pulled out of square with a shredded belt edge. We check frame square, pulley cleanliness, idler condition and loading first, then set tracking last.
Can you repair a splice on site, or does the belt have to come out?
On site is the normal case. Mechanical fasteners and repair work go in where the belt sits, and the line is back running the same visit in most instances. What we also do is work out why the joint failed, because splices that let go usually point at excessive tension, a pulley too small for the belt, or impact loading at the feed point. Replacing the joint without that answer just resets the clock.
How fast can somebody get to a stopped line?
We run 24 hours a day, every day, and a conveyor down is treated as an emergency because it holds up everything feeding it. Drive time from American Canyon reaches most of Napa and Solano quickly, with regular calls into Contra Costa. When you call, describe the machine and the symptom and you will get a straight answer about arrival rather than a vague window.
The motor keeps tripping its overload. Does it need replacing?
Usually not. An overload trip means the motor is pulling more current than it should, and most of the time the reason is mechanical drag rather than a failing motor: seized rollers, a belt dragging on the frame, an overloaded run, or a gearbox that has lost its oil. Swapping the motor without finding that drag gives you a new motor tripping on the same fault. We measure the load and look for what is fighting it.
Do you handle food-plant and washdown conveyors?
Yes. Those lines wear differently because the cleaning chemistry attacks bearings, fasteners and frames from the outside, so a roller that failed early there often failed from corrosion rather than load. Repairs get specified with that environment in mind, and we work around sanitation schedules so the line is available when production needs it.
What does a conveyor call cost?
You get one figure before work begins, covering the visit and the repair, with no hourly minimum attached to it. If the fault has to be diagnosed first, you are told what that part costs, then you hear the repair figure once we know what is actually wrong. Nothing runs open-ended and no number moves afterward unless you have agreed to a change.
Tell us what the belt is doing.
Type of line, roughly how long it is, what it carries, and whether it is drifting, squealing, slipping or dead. That is usually enough for us to load the right parts before leaving. The phone is answered at any hour.
HoursMonday to Sunday, 24 hours
Based inAmerican Canyon, CA
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