ddivinia
Elite Member
If the tractor is not bogging - you should have smoke pouring off the belt. Atleast that is what happens with mine. Any smoke?
D.
Chipper bearcat chipper problems
- Thread starter dogday
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If the tractor is not bogging - you should have smoke pouring off the belt. Atleast that is what happens with mine. Any smoke?
D.
pennwalk
Veteran Member
I think there is a spring loaded idler pulley that tensions the belts.Is it there and tensioning the belts? It is possible that someone switched to incorrect belts? You can download the parts manual from Echo/Bearcat. Jason it right on about the blades. If you touch them they will cut you if they are sharp. Did you mean model 73554? My Bearcat (70554) will stop the tractor engine before it bogs down.
Chris
Chris
ddivinia
Elite Member
There is a tensioner.
I can bring my tractor to it's knees also, but it depends on how the load is applied. If it is a gradual load increase like chipping a big log and the rotation speed slowly decreases - the tractor slows down and I suspect would stall if I didn't stop the feeding of the material.
If the load is immediate - the belt will slip and start smoking.
D.
Deerlope
Veteran Member
I have a Bearcat 5 " PTO chipper but I am not sure of the model. I would have to go look. If you ask Bearcat they would probably send you a manual for it. Belts are important,knives and anvil adjustments are also. The knives are reverseable. If they have never been turned over then do so.
Thanks, I will check the blades again and make sure they are sharp and take a better look at the belt. The blades seemed pretty sharp before. The chipper has around 10hrs of use. With big logs/limbs it chips great at the very start and then just a little in it bogs down. I can see the pto shaft spinning but flywheel slows down drematically. No smoke from the belt. If I take the large limb out of the chipper the flywheel will regain regain speed and clear the debris left in the chipper.
pennwalk
Veteran Member
10 hours is about the time I would be thinking about sharpening my knives in a manual feed machine. My bearcat has 4 knives. 2 inside and 2 outside which can be swapped to get a few more hours of chipping. Some of the newer bearcats have double sided knives which can be turned over.
Let us know what you find.
Chris
Let us know what you find.
Chris
woodchuckcanuck
Silver Member
If your blades are sharp then check the clearance of the blades to the flywheel. If its too high, the machine will want to grab more. What I do sometimes is when the blades are newly sharpened (enough to take the hair off the arm) I set the clearance low. Then as the blades dull a bit, if I don't have time to sharpen, I open up the clearance so it continues to cut at about the same rate. HP and belt tension are importance, but don't forget about blade clearance.
Its like sharpening the teeth on your chainsaw, if you don't have the rakes filed to the right height, it won't matter how sharp the teeth are, the saw won't cut proper.
Its like sharpening the teeth on your chainsaw, if you don't have the rakes filed to the right height, it won't matter how sharp the teeth are, the saw won't cut proper.
yankeerider
Platinum Member
You might want to check for a sheared key between the pulley and the shaft. There could be enough friction to spin the flywheel up to speed with no load, but not maintain drive under load.