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Contract climbing for my old company today. Taking down 9 ash trees due to EAB. Everything is rocking and rolling until a bearing in the chipper drum goes bad. What horrible noise. Metal and bolts flying everywhere. Fortunately nobody caught any shrapnel but the chipper is f*cked for now. Never a dull moment.

Hope it's not a Vermeer. My condolences.
 
No greasing everyday is usually the reason,
One they skip a day, they let it go another day and wait until they are told to or it fails,
those drum bearings on Morbark should be packed everyday.
Jeff

That's what I thought also. I ran that machine for 3 years and never had any issues. The guy that replaced me and who no longer works there was not the best on maintenance.
 
Some days I feel like it but I am way to committed at this point to turn back. Had a good year this year. Finally found a good employee that cares and wants to learn. I been teaching him to climb, and new week he is taking a certified arborist short course. Hoping in the next 2 years to have a 75' high bucket truck too. I changed the way I was pricing jobs this year. I been pricing them for what there worth and not to get every job. I worked a whole lot less hours this yearand made more money. I only worked a few weekends the whole summer, which makes the wife happy. Lol
 
Will do... I'll probably be up all night trying it on different ropes to get some initial settings to try tomorrow. Have a hook in the ceiling, but can really only get about half my weight on it, as I don't trust it. But, I can get it adjusted pretty close doing this, so far.

Size comparison, with ZigZag... for perspective.

Akimbo-ZigZag-SIZE.jpg
 
I had that problem originally, $6000 to replace everything when the drum bearings went. The new drum had replaced it with replacement shafts for the bearings, bolt right to the drum. Sold that unit and got a new one and it too has the replaceable shafts.
 
We had our shaft fail on a 15" morbark chewed up anvil and blades and bent the hatch to get into the drum, but the drum itself was still good. The shaft was one piece I seem to recall heating the **** out of the drum and beating the piss out of it to get it out then putting a one piece back in... but then again we do some pretty crazy repair/fab work in our shop. The average guy might not be up to the task....

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
 
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