Counterweight rail bracket cracked on a 12-stop in Austin

Rode a call last Thursday on an older Otis in a downtown Austin high rise. The CWT guide rail bracket had stress fractures at the top two floors, and that rail was flexing bad enough to wobble the cab. Pulled the car out of service and set up a temporary clamp rig while we ordered the replacement bracket. Has anyone else seen these bolt-on brackets fail like that, or is this just deferred maintenance catching up?

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adams.henry1mo ago

Wait, are we supposed to start a support group for cracked brackets now, or just a pool on how long the temp clamp rig holds up before someone's lunch order gets slingshotted across the lobby? Honestly, that sounds less like a bracket issue and more like the building's been treating the "torque" spec as a friendly suggestion. I've seen those bolt-on jobs go south when the bolts were torqued to "good enough" and the building's HVAC was vibrating the shaft like a tuning fork, so yeah, deferred maintenance probably got a head start on that one. Ngl, you might wanna check the whole rail alignment while you're up there, cause a flex like that usually means the rail's been out of plumb for a while, not just the bracket finally quitting. Hope the new bracket comes with a decent gasket or shim kit, cause the old one probably left some wear marks that'll bite you later.