Mike058
Gold Member
I got my chipper today. It comes on a small pallet with the box being about 26"x26" by 30" tall. It weighs about 185lbs with hand holds on either side. Two people could manage it easy. You have to bolt on the legs, discharge chute and hopper. They say you need two 1/2" wrenches. I'd say one wrench and a socket with an extension. You'll need a universal joint too, but that's later. The legs went on pretty easy. You get nylon lock nuts instead of lock washers which is nice. A couple of them are a bit of a challenge to get to, to tighten. That's where the extension came in handy. The paint on one of the legs was scratched off, so I hit it with some black primer and the heat gun. The chute is next. There are four holes for attaching to the chipper body. Unfortunately one of the holes had a small sliver of steel left over from the drill. The chute fits tightly onto the body, so I had to file the sliver off, prime and hit it with the heat gun again.(I'm glad I have a heat gun 
) Now for the hopper. I figured by this time something would just go on, no problem. Oh dear. Glad I have a file, black primer and a heat gun. The hopper is held on by carriage bolts. The hopper has four slots cut into it. The shoulder of the carriage bolt is held on two sides by the slot. It passes through a hole in the body, and held on by washer and a nut. Well, the paint job (which overall is excellent) took up enough space in the slot to keep the carriage bolt from fitting into it. So I filed the paint away, masked off the area, and primed it. Ok, one more job. The operator presence device has to be overridden when you use the chipper. They supply a cable that goes from the "dash" down to about where the engine is. It has a relay on it and 3 connectors. First you have to unplug a really hard to unplug plug under the dash. I ended up needing some channel lock pliers to get a grip on the thing. The relay is mounted to the support for the gas tank. A ground wire is connected to the engine mounting stud just below and forward of the gas tank. This is where you need the u-joint for your socket. There are other wires attached to this ground point. The nut holding them on wasn't really hard to get loose. I think it was really too easy. I decided to put a bit of blue loc-tite on the threads of the nut before putting it back on. I was careful to not slop it around and mess up my ground though. So here I was, only have to hook the new cable up to the short cable coming from the chipper to start chipping away. Going to be easy, right? Guess again Buckwheat. Crazy cables are an inch away from connecting. So I start to look for some slack. Can't really get any from the long cable with the relay on it. The relay's screwed to the gas tank mount, 3 inches away. I tip the relay a bit and get a 1/4 inch or so on that end. The chipper side looks like my best bet. The cable is zip tied to a hole in the frame. I cut the zip tie and manage to get the slack I need to just barely plug them together so that nothing's touching anything hot (like the muffler that just happens to be right there). Finally some good news. The belt goes on no sweat. Belt cover, piece of cake. Engine turns over, pull the belt clutch knob and away she goes. Really very quite actually. I put a nice alder branch into the hopper and ratta-tat-tat it's a pile of chips sitting next to the machine. I'm going to call them about the cable though. If it's suppose to be zip tied to the chipper, it's going to have to be longer in order to reach.
) Now for the hopper. I figured by this time something would just go on, no problem. Oh dear. Glad I have a file, black primer and a heat gun. The hopper is held on by carriage bolts. The hopper has four slots cut into it. The shoulder of the carriage bolt is held on two sides by the slot. It passes through a hole in the body, and held on by washer and a nut. Well, the paint job (which overall is excellent) took up enough space in the slot to keep the carriage bolt from fitting into it. So I filed the paint away, masked off the area, and primed it. Ok, one more job. The operator presence device has to be overridden when you use the chipper. They supply a cable that goes from the "dash" down to about where the engine is. It has a relay on it and 3 connectors. First you have to unplug a really hard to unplug plug under the dash. I ended up needing some channel lock pliers to get a grip on the thing. The relay is mounted to the support for the gas tank. A ground wire is connected to the engine mounting stud just below and forward of the gas tank. This is where you need the u-joint for your socket. There are other wires attached to this ground point. The nut holding them on wasn't really hard to get loose. I think it was really too easy. I decided to put a bit of blue loc-tite on the threads of the nut before putting it back on. I was careful to not slop it around and mess up my ground though. So here I was, only have to hook the new cable up to the short cable coming from the chipper to start chipping away. Going to be easy, right? Guess again Buckwheat. Crazy cables are an inch away from connecting. So I start to look for some slack. Can't really get any from the long cable with the relay on it. The relay's screwed to the gas tank mount, 3 inches away. I tip the relay a bit and get a 1/4 inch or so on that end. The chipper side looks like my best bet. The cable is zip tied to a hole in the frame. I cut the zip tie and manage to get the slack I need to just barely plug them together so that nothing's touching anything hot (like the muffler that just happens to be right there). Finally some good news. The belt goes on no sweat. Belt cover, piece of cake. Engine turns over, pull the belt clutch knob and away she goes. Really very quite actually. I put a nice alder branch into the hopper and ratta-tat-tat it's a pile of chips sitting next to the machine. I'm going to call them about the cable though. If it's suppose to be zip tied to the chipper, it's going to have to be longer in order to reach.