ChipZilla !!!!! (Bearcat 73554 Chipper Shredder)

[hazmat]

Picked up my new Bearcat 73554 Chipper Shredder on Thursday. Got to run it for 5 hours this afternoon. It has a new name - CHIPZILLA

Here is a mini review & some pix. I tried to convince my wife to take some video, but she wasn't inclined to help me contribute to your deliquency. Something about "sisterhood". Maybe at a future date.

Specs
5" capacity
Manual "self" feed
140# flywheel with integral blower
4 chipper knives (double sided)
~2000 RPM operating speed (has pulleys to speed up the 540 RPM)
24 shredder knives (double sided)
Weight 600#
MSRP ~$4,000

General
Impressive construction & craftsmanship. Nary a squeek or rattle when fired up - well balanced. This thing is solid. Although, once you start feeding it, you'll want to be wearing hearing protection (I wear my chainsaw helmet with muffs & face shield). The housing opens up with the removal of one carriage bolt. Makes for easy blade changes or to clear a clog.

The 3pt setup is not built to the quick hitch / Imatch specification. Not a huge issue as my harbor freight hitch has an adjustable hook, but a little dissapointing. Also the chute is 86" tall when the unit is on the ground - unless you have an 8' door on your "equipment shed" (I don't ) you have to remove it for storage (3 bolts). The chute rotates 360 degrees for easy placement.

In 5 hours of use, I generated ~5 yards of mulch. This was a mixture of limbs, leaves & bark/sawdust pile. This machine works faster than I do - I'm beat

Chipper
The knives are still sharp, but the chipper pulls the wood in on it's own. Most of my wood was dry. My 18HP (14 PTO HP) tractor could only digest about 3 feet of 3" dry maple before it started to stall out, a quick pull back on the limb allowed it to recover. Generally, anything over 3" is firewood to me. The 5" capacity of this unit was great as it made it easier to feed crooked branches. The built in blower launches the chips into next week. I picked up a 6" PVC elbow to make landing the chips in my dump trailer a bit easier. Haven't installed it yet.

Shredder
For the smaller stuff, the shredder shines - branches up to 1" and other organic material (leaves, bark etc.) The hopper is very high, but it prevents you from getting your hand into the shredding drum. Also, the way it is designed, gravity helps to feed the shredder. On my old unit you really had to force the stuff into the shredder.

I found it worked best for the organic material to slowy "sprinkle" the material into the hopper to prevent feeding clogs. If it does plug up, poke at it with a stick. I was shredding a pile of sawdust & bark left over from cutting & splitting 8 cords of firewood last spring. It was very wet - lots of rain last week & it's been decomposing for a year. I clogged the output chute 3 times. Took about 5 minutes to clear the clog.

Dry leaves were turned to dust about as fast as you could load them in.

The shredder doesn't have the typical screen. There is an adjustable gap between the shredding drum and the blower. Once the shreds can fit past the gap, they get blown out the chute.

Summary
Overall I'm very happy. I'm going to write the company about the quick hitch issue as well as the height of the chute - maybe they could make it hinge somehow? Those are my only complaints.

A close second (for considerably less $$ $2,500) was the Wallenstein BX42 chipper. I decided that for my uses, I really wanted the shredder capabilities.

 

[RoyJackson]

Great looking chipper, Hazmat...kjeep us posted as time goes by...

 

[BTDT]

Sometimes I think I would like one of those, but then I probably wouldn't have any trees left. Looks like it did a nice job. If the chute is too tall, and it was mine, I would cut some off the top and reattatch the deflector.

 

[larry8818]

Hey Hazmat,

How did you convert your Bearcat 73554 to quickhitch?

I am trying to convert mine as well. I cannot see clearly in your pictures how you did it.

I have attached 4 pictures on trying to figure out how to convert mine. I already have a plan, but was wondering how you did yours.

Thanks,
Larry

 

[hazmat]

Hey Hazmat,

How did you convert your Bearcat 73554 to quickhitch?

I am trying to convert mine as well. I cannot see clearly in your pictures how you did it.

I have attached 4 pictures on trying to figure out how to convert mine. I already have a plan, but was wondering how you did yours.

Thanks,
Larry

I cheated - I have the Harbor Freight quick hitch which has an adjustable top hook (unlike the Deere that is fixed). No mods to the chipper.

In your case, you will need to weld some flat bar to the top attachment structure in order to drop the top pin hole so that your Imatch will pick it up. It looks like you have enough room to do it on the "inside" (thus avoiding the hassle of the angled part).

 

[larry8818]

Hazmat,

Thanks. An adjustable top link sounds like it will do the trick...I am very surprised John Deere does not do that...that would be nice.

I think I can get around the weld. Your right is saying I can go to the inside which I will. I will Drill two holes on each side and run two bolts from the inside out to keep the unit from tipping back when I bring the 3pt hitch up, then just drill my lower hole and run the busing through for my top hook.

Thanks for your input. Do you have a close up of the Harbor Freight hitch, adjustable top link?

 

[hazmat]

You are welcome.

I don't have a pic of adjustable hook, but the HF quick hitch has been discussed a bunch here on tbn - I'd try a search...

 

[J_J]

I cheated - I have the Harbor Freight quick hitch which has an adjustable top hook (unlike the Deere that is fixed). No mods to the chipper.

In your case, you will need to weld some flat bar to the top attachment structure in order to drop the top pin hole so that your Imatch will pick it up. It looks like you have enough room to do it on the "inside" (thus avoiding the hassle of the angled part).

Why not use a flexible top hook up, such as a piece of chain with a grab hook

I have the an older PTO Bearcat chipper/shredder. My sides are not as high as yours, and the chute is not as tall. I had to purchased the add on blower. Did they offer different shredding chutes, with different slots or holes? My shredding blades can also be reversed.

Something you might consider, is ,that Black and Decker, has a kit that includes a hose and a netting cover for a trash can. I use this setup keep the chips in one place until I want to use them.

Something not so funny, I was chipping stuff, and the chute rotated around and slung stuff all over me. I did find a way to lock the chute in place. I have only had to replace one bearing on one end.

 

[ddivinia]

Who is the hook up more blades? I can see myself going thru some blades in my 73544. I figure I can have a handful of them and get them all sharpened at once.

D.

 

[Loogie]

Thanks for pics and review. I'd love to see some video of it in action!

 

[jeffinsgf]

I thought I would share something I did to my Country Mfg wagon to make it a lot more "chipper friendly". HazMat briefly mentioned the problem in his opening post. That is, getting the chips to stay in the trailer. I am assuming the blower in the Bearcat is as powerful as the one in my Bush Hog, which is to say, pretty dang powerful. He mentioned adding a down pipe, which I tried. I also tried adding a flexible spout and a long hose. Nothing seemed to work just the way I wanted it to.

I ended up building a frame out of 1 x 3's and screwing it to the side wall boards of the trailer. The front and top are sided with some left over barn siding and the sides are lined with metal window screen material. The chips blow in, the air escapes through the window screen and I catch 99% of my chips instead 5% or 10% (with the rest getting blown all over creation). I built it so that the frame could be removed from the trailer, but since this is what I use the dump trailer for most of the time, that hasn't come up yet. Here's a pic of the trailer and my chipper.

 

[hazmat]

Who is the hook up more blades? I can see myself going thru some blades in my 73544. I figure I can have a handful of them and get them all sharpened at once.

D.

Well obviously your dealer is a hook up, but here is a possible aftermarket source Industrial Knives, machine knives; precision sharpening from TSK

Though you might want to contact jeffinsgf for some sharpening equipment (hint check his profile).

 

[hazmat]

I thought I would share something I did to my Country Mfg wagon to make it a lot more "chipper friendly". ...

Jeff,

Nice work. That project was already on my to do list (though with many other things in front of it). I really need to get another tractor to pull the dump trailer around with (I got spoiled owning both my TC18 & B3030 for about 6 weeks while selling the TC18).

So far I'm coping by transporting the brush to the chip pile (usually with the dump trailer). It is not the most time effecient process - you have to handle the limbs twice - load it into trailer, load it into chipper vs. straight to the chipper.

 

[jeffinsgf]

.... I really need to get another tractor to pull the dump trailer around with (I got spoiled owning both my TC18 & B3030 for about 6 weeks while selling the TC18). ...

It amazes me how much I depend on my little 455 in conjunction with my 4410. I can name half a dozen recent projects that would have taken more than twice as long if I were working with only one tractor. All I need now is a pocket sized, off-road unicycle to get me back to which ever one I leave in the field.

BTW, thanks for the plug. I can confirm that a Tormek sharpened chipper blade makes prettier mulch and does it longer.

One more thing, re: the trailer mod. Once you do it, even if you bring your limbs to the pile, I think you'll blow them into your wagon. I get about 30% more usable mulch when I blow into the trailer than if I try to blow onto a pile.

 

[mjncad]

Jeffinsgf:

Is it the picture, or are your 4410's loader mounting posts leaning forward? I have a 4200 with a 420 FEL and mine are straight up when the loader is attached securely.

It just looks like its not securely mounted to the tractor to me.

 

[getindirty]

I thought I would share something I did to my Country Mfg wagon to make it a lot more "chipper friendly". HazMat briefly mentioned the problem in his opening post. That is, getting the chips to stay in the trailer. I am assuming the blower in the Bearcat is as powerful as the one in my Bush Hog, which is to say, pretty dang powerful. He mentioned adding a down pipe, which I tried. I also tried adding a flexible spout and a long hose. Nothing seemed to work just the way I wanted it to.

I ended up building a frame out of 1 x 3's and screwing it to the side wall boards of the trailer. The front and top are sided with some left over barn siding and the sides are lined with metal window screen material. The chips blow in, the air escapes through the window screen and I catch 99% of my chips instead 5% or 10% (with the rest getting blown all over creation). I built it so that the frame could be removed from the trailer, but since this is what I use the dump trailer for most of the time, that hasn't come up yet. Here's a pic of the trailer and my chipper.

Great now I need another tractor! Honey where's the checkbook?

 

[jeffinsgf]

Jeffinsgf:

Is it the picture, or are your 4410's loader mounting posts leaning forward? I have a 4200 with a 420 FEL and mine are straight up when the loader is attached securely.

It just looks like its not securely mounted to the tractor to me.

The 430 on the 4410 leans forward just a little bit. The 420 is due north and south.

 

[jeffinsgf]

Great now I need another tractor! Honey where's the checkbook?

Heck yeah! Can't get anything done with just one!

Hey, it worked for me.

 

[williamemack]

I have owned a Bearcat 73554 for about 4 years now and am only semi happy with it. I bought it to replace a "lesser" Goossen chipper that exhausts out the bottom, but the Goossen is a much better chipper as it doesn't bog the tractor down as readily, and I'm using a 35 pto hp tractor! I am now considering a power feed 4 inch Wallenstein. I rarely use the Bearcat's shredder as it is a bit scarey how fast it sucks material in.

 

[jeffinsgf]

I have owned a Bearcat 73554 for about 4 years now and am only semi happy with it. I bought it to replace a "lesser" Goossen chipper that exhausts out the bottom, but the Goossen is a much better chipper as it doesn't bog the tractor down as readily, and I'm using a 35 pto hp tractor! I am now considering a power feed 4 inch Wallenstein. I rarely use the Bearcat's shredder as it is a bit scarey how fast it sucks material in.

Then you may recognize the Bush Hog in the picture above. Goossen private labeled their chipper for Bush Hog.

Before you traded your Goossen, did you know it had an add-on blower available? I didn't even consider a bottom exhaust. I saw that train wreck headed my way. I would like power feed, but the price tag always scares me away. The Bush Hog / Goossen pulls the material in, as long as the blades are sharp and you do a little steering.