Pulley relagging in situ: three days instead of three weeks
Removing a drive pulley is most of the cost of relagging it. Sometimes you do not have to.
A drive pulley with worn lagging is a routine repair with a punishing logistics tail. Remove the pulley, transport it, relag it in a workshop, transport it back, reinstall and realign. Three weeks is normal. The lagging itself is perhaps two days of that.
When in-situ works
Strip-and-bond lagging can be applied in place if three conditions hold: the shell is sound and true, there is enough physical access to work around the full circumference, and the ambient temperature can be held within the adhesive's cure range for the duration.
On this job the first two were satisfied. The third was December in the Gobi, which meant tenting the drive station and running heaters for the full cure. That added a day and saved about eighteen.
When it does not
If the shell is out of round, or if the bearings are anywhere near the end of their life, in-situ relagging is a false economy — you will be pulling the pulley within months anyway and will have paid for the lagging twice. We check shell runout before quoting, and we have talked customers out of this approach more than once.
