Chipper Chinese Chipper Review

[markie61]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I'm working hard on my schedule to pick up my chipper but so far nothing is working out. )</font>

I'll be happy to pick it up for you......of course, I'll have to bring it back here first...... /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Mark

 

[ken4210]

MAJMAC382 - I did get in touch with Gary in regards to the Owners manual. He copied one and sent it to me. He said it's not the first time someone didn't get one. It didn't pose a great deal of problems however thanks to the pictures eariler in this post.

 

[ken4210]

Junkman - When I went to pick up the chipper it came in a double crate, but it is bolted together, so we just needed to unbolt the upper crated and lift it off from the upper one. The weight of the crate is about 50-80 lbs, and the chipper is roughly 800 when assembled. If you strip all of the loose parts off from the crate before unloading you can drop the weight probably close to 100 lbs.

 

[ken4210]

Well, I've got about 8 hrs of chipping on the unit, and ran into my first mechanical issue. Now bear in mind that my wife and I have chipped up more in that 8 hrs than we could have in 8 weekends the old way. About 250' of chips 8' wide, and 3" deep. The machine does a fantastic job takes just about anything you can lift into it, some things with big branches extending out, and large root balls pose a bit of difficulty but you can get most of them with a little twist while feeding.

My mechanical problem has to do with the feed roller mechanism. I want to go into detail on the problem because it is an inherent flaw in this chipper that more of you might run into. One of the ball joints that runs the feed roller popped apart. The attachment shows the larger view of the mechanism.

 

[ken4210]

This is the upper ball joint that came apart.

 

[DIYGuy]

Beyond the obvious, I don't see the problem.

How did the spring come off of the assembly? Even jamming the the feed rollers to a halt only caused my belt to smoke and get loose.

I've popped the belt a few times trying to push something through a little bigger than I should, but I've never encountered the sping tensioner coming off of the slip joint.

DIYGuy

 

[DIYGuy]

I responded to the 1st pic before I saw the second. When it was assembled, did the joint get greased? Mine was already greased and I didn;t have to do anything to it until I lost a belt.

I'll pull mine apart, weather permitting and see if I have any abnormal wear on the ball joints.

DIYGuy

 

[ken4210]

This is a close up of the unassembled joint. The ultimate cause of the joint coming apart is that the circlip was assembled incorrectly with the gap at one of the four openings for the ball. This caused the ball to prematurely wear the circlip enough to allow the ball to pop out. Unfortuneately the wear has the circlip peened into the groove, and I haven't been able to get it out.

I contacted Gary to see if this is covered under the warranty.

 

[ken4210]

DIYGuy - I had taken the spring off prior to taking the picture, just hadn't reassembled it. I can't seem to get the peened over circlip out. The only thing I can think of is to cut a groove in from the outside to gain access to the circlip. I can maybe be able to knock it out from the outside in. Then the delima of where to get the part, hopefully the local autoparts store has some circlips.

I greased the unit heavily before I ever used it. The misalignment of the circlip is the culprit.

 

[DIYGuy]

Completely understand.

The ball is a 4 sided bonhaus type of nub into a square hole on the shaft. The nub is prevented from backing out of the joint by the circlip.

In your case, the gap in the circlip lined up with one of the four splines of the nub.

I would also check for debris in the bottom of the shaft hole and make sure that the two shaft pieces slide freely on on another.

The circlip should never really come into contact with the nub unless something pushes the nub back out of the hole, or pulls the shaft off of the nub. The spring keeps the shaft holes onto the balls as the roller feeder goes through it's range of motion.

Secondly, if the belt tension is too tight it won't slip when the feed roller gets jammed and I've heard that if the belt doesn't slip, the ball joints and shaft do. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I haven't experienced that myself, but the dealer made sure he pointed it out to me when I picked up my unit.)

Let us know what you find.

DIYGuy (MarkS)

 

[ken4210]

DIYGuy - You've described the part a lot better than I did. I like the trick with the belt tension thought. I have had the feeder bind up, and make the belt smoke, but it could have also been putting a lot of force on the balljoint. I'll let you know what I find out from the dealer. There wasn't any debris behind the joint, only grease, but it does merit mentioning because that could also put force on the circlip.

 

[DIYGuy]

I disassembled mine today and took pics and notes. (Posted all in a new thread). I found the the circlips on both ends of my shaft do not have any wear patters on them, and there is no corrsponding wear on the ball nubs either.

I knew the spring was important to the assembly, but I didn't understand how important until I took it all apart, hence, the new thread and pictures.

If you have any questions that I can help with, let me know.

Based on your pictures, I've got to believe that either:

1. Your slip joint in the middle of the shaft is binding, causing the ball to be pulled back against the circlip

or

2. The socket end of your upper ball nub has way to much play in it, causing the upper ball nub to rotate too far in the socket at the end of the drive shaft.

DIYGuy

 

[ken4210]

DIYGuy - My thought is that your second statement is probably more accurate in my case. Everything seems to move freely, and the spring is doing its job. I think what happened is that when it bound up once, it just happened to be on the nub that allowed enough clearance for the socket to pop out, and the damage to the clip occured by the ball trying to snap back in, with the help of the spring. I think your earlier statement about belt tension is something for the other owners to take note of. It is sure a lot better to have the belt slip in a jam situation, than to have this happen.

I still need to get the old clip out of the socket, which I think I have devised a way to do. However, getting a replacement clip is posing a problem. Checked with some local sources, and they haven't seen anything like it, and Gary doesn't carry anything but blades for parts. I'll do some more searching, but if anyone has any ideas on where to find one of these circlips let me know.

 

[CTyler]

If you can't find anything local then do a search on "Google" or your fav SE using circlip. Google had all kinds of places listed.

 

[Lazy]

I think you might find the snap ring you are looking for here

http://www.mcmaster.com/

Charlie

 

[TonyC]

Ken,

Is there any way you can show what you described in photographs? I want to be sure mine is correct when I get it.

Also, excuse my ignorance but what is a circlip? Is it like a retaining ring?

 

[JerryT]

This may seem a little odd, but Lowes (hardware dept. - nuts and bolts) has a drawered section of "hard to find" gismos. You would be surprised what I have found there that I couldn't find elsewhere. If this is a snap ring they probably have some, its just a matter of size.

 

[MajMac392]

I had never heard the term circlip either. I did a quick search and it looks like I have just been lumping all 'snap rings' into the same category.

I noticed that: http://www.tractorconnection.com/ sells Jinma out in Oregon. Maybe they stock some parts for these. It might be worth the call or email.

 

[tomnky]

See if this is on the order of what You are looking for: Circlips

 

[CTyler]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Is it like a retaining ring? )</font>

Yes. I always thought of the circlip as a snap ring without the plier holes.