Well, things didn't go quite as I had hoped ... best laid plans and all that ...
Got the 4-way wedge essentially done ... turned out ok, but not perfect. It does slip over the fixed wedge on the beam both ways with no problem (flippable) ... but it's loose enough that it cocks a bit and will jam on ... so you can't just pull it off. So far, tapping it with a plastic HF deadblow hammer un-wedges it so it can be removed/flipped.
Biggest surprise was that even with the 3" cylinder, the log lift would not pick up a large round (30" mebbe ?) It was fairly heavy ... at least several hundred pounds I'd guess. Think it may have been some ash that appeared to be dead already when they delivered it.
The cylinder did have enough power however to snap the welds on one of the pieces of 1" solid square bar stock that I used to build the brackets on the log lift for the attachment of rod end of the cylinder, after repeated attempts to lift the round. Probably need some gusseting.
I think part of the problem is the initial angle of the cylinder lacking enough mechanical advantage to get started.
After trying to lift that round and failing, I decided to just try splitting something with the 4-way that I could lift up onto the beam, so I grabbed a round of that Sycamore that they brought me last year ... was probably 20" or so in diameter. This stuff was very green when I got it but it has been drying for almost a year. It has a very twisted grain and when I tried splitting it green last year, the splitter couldn't handle larger pieces. Tried it with the 4-way and that wouldn't touch it. Tried it with just the fixed wedge and that wouldn't touch it either. Kills the engine at around 2000 psi ... which brings me to the next issue.
The engine is still leaking a considerable amount of oil ... way too much to ignore.
It's not coming out of the valve cover, so I did manage to get that sealed ... but may be coming out of either the crank seal or the base of the jug ... or perhaps both. It was getting dark around the time I was messing with this, so I need to look at it in the light and see if I can figure out where it's coming from.
I tried adjusting the unloader and was still able to the kill the engine on any settings I tried - whenever the pressure built to 2000 psi.
Kinda surprising ... since the engine (theoretically) should have enough power to drive the pump at 2500 psi in low flow/high pressure mode ... although using
Surplus Center's calculator it says it is for electric motors and to double the hp requirements for gas. Based on the pump displacement, it is only flowing 3.02 gpm in lo flow mode.
The engine - 6.5 hp Briggs - is perhaps marginal for this pump (Barnes 1300486 - spec sheet:
Concentric AB HI LO PUMP US) ... so I'm considering a re-power, and maybe going with a 8 hp Predator from Harbor Freight ... rather than messing around an old engine that may have multiple issues.
A 13 hp Predator is another possibility ... one advantage being it has electric start and plenty of power I would think ... but it's way more expensive ($359 vs. $239)
May have to change at least one half of the Lovejoy coupling with either of them, depending on the shaft sizes.
