Well, It was finally time to fire her up. 3 pulls and that new Briggs was running. I only had 1 leak to fix, so we started splitting. My oldest son had the honor to name our new splitter. Bulldog it is. This morning I took bulldog out to the wood pile, fired her up, and just let it run for about 15 minutes, then I got to work. I had 25 rounds to split. Took about 2 hours. I would split a few pieces, and then check over for leaks. As the hydro fluid warmed up, it pushed about 2 quarts out of the breather. I guess that is its "full spot". It took 20 gallons to fill up the tank. It still had some room left, which I thought would have been enough room for expansion. Leaking 2 quarts isn't much of a problem. After that, bulldog was good to go. I left the pressures set at the factory settings for a couple runs. 2300 psi. Design specs are for 3000, but I figured I would put some run time on everything before cranking her up. There was one piece that the wedge berried up in, and it wouldn't split. I just rocked the big round to loosen it up from the wedge, and moved it around a bit. It popped open on the second try. It makes me proud to have built my own splitter, and even happier to see it run. I can claim it was built in America, because it was. With foreign parts!
thanks
