BC1000 bed knife question

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dboreham

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I'm fixing up a recently acquired 2002 BC1000XL. I've replaced the knives and now replacing the bed knife (aka shear bar, it seems, according to Vermeer parts guy).
Manual says 1/8" / 3mm clearance to knives, using gauge tool, which of course is MIA. I have one on order from Vermeer but in the meantime I found a flat wrench that measures exactly 3mm with vernier caliper. My question is : how accurate does that gap need to be? I'm guessing that we're not talking NASA tolerances but after tussling with the thing for a while I got it to about 3.05mm on one knife and, say 2.95mm on the very end of the other knife (my gauge just won't quite fit through on the last 1/2" of bar). The shear bar seems to be a tiny bit out of true. I suspect there is some gunk that I have not been able to dislodge (can't see in there, haven't tried borescope yet...) that stops the bar from moving further back than the old one at that end once the bolt is tight. Should I just torque the bolts up and call it good, or monkey with it some more? I saw in an old thread someone talk about moving the bar to snug up to a shop-made gauge, tighten then remove the gauge. I'm not sure how to pull that off -- my gauge is very good at falling onto my face.
 
you are good. dosen't need to be exact. Just make sure all knives pass by the bed knife freely before firing it up. The knives themselves sometimes very a bit in thickness. I sharpen a lot of chipper blades commercially.
 
Is bed knife the same as anvil?
Yes. It seems to be called by different names depending on the vendor and in the case of Vermeer, which book you read -- maintenance book calls it "Bed Knife", while parts catalog calls it "Shear Bar", and some people call it Anvil.
 
you are good. dosen't need to be exact. Just make sure all knives pass by the bed knife freely before firing it up. The knives themselves sometimes very a bit in thickness. I sharpen a lot of chipper blades commercially.
Thanks! Of course I did monkey with it some more, but ended up concluding that one of the knives is either ground not quite true with the bolt holes, or the bolt holes are slightly skew, or I bolted it slightly skew. It's about 3 mil difference in clearance from one end of the knife to the other. The other knife seems perfectly parallel with the bar.

So I fired it up. The adrenaline rush is a bit more than with the excavator and track loader I've been operating but it chewed through some 3" test branches nicely. I wasn't ready for the time it takes to spin down. There has to be quite a bit of kinetic energy in that thing.

One last question if I may for now: greasing the drum bearings : manual says "purge". I take this to mean apply grease until fresh grease appears out some orifice. Problem is I don't know where that is. I pushed quite a bit in with an electric grease gun, but nothing appears that I can see. Where's it supposed to come out? It's possible I didn't apply enough yet, but leery to keep on pumping in case it's piling up in some place it shouldn't. Thanks.
 
One last question if I may for now: greasing the drum bearings : manual says "purge". I take this to mean apply grease until fresh grease appears out some orifice. Problem is I don't know where that is. I pushed quite a bit in with an electric grease gun, but nothing appears that I can see. Where's it supposed to come out? It's possible I didn't apply enough yet, but leery to keep on pumping in case it's piling up in some place it shouldn't. Thanks.
Recently replaced my BC1000XL drum bearings, purchased from Vermeer. Not knowing if they were shipped pre lubricated by the bearing mfg. I contacted Link-Belt. Their engineer explained that depending on the buyers spec. they can be between 0% and 100% filled. He instructed to fill with grease until it can be seen from the purge port on the outer bearing.

On a 2008 machine it's easy enough on the left side but the bearing shield must be removed on the right site.

Using a hand pump grease gun I lost count of the number of pumps until a bit of grease was visible. Probably more than 8.
When the drum stopped, after a test run, a rim of grease surrounded the bearing.

BTW I recently replaced the knives and found the shear bar spacing was uneven. I was able to loosen the bolts and even out the spacing but could not get the 1/8" gap, with the Vermeer tool. When the shear bar bolts were tightened the bar moved back to the original position. Since the knives did not contact the bar I left as is.
 
Recently replaced my BC1000XL drum bearings, purchased from Vermeer. Not knowing if they were shipped pre lubricated by the bearing mfg. I contacted Link-Belt. Their engineer explained that depending on the buyers spec. they can be between 0% and 100% filled. He instructed to fill with grease until it can be seen from the purge port on the outer bearing.

On a 2008 machine it's easy enough on the left side but the bearing shield must be removed on the right site.

Using a hand pump grease gun I lost count of the number of pumps until a bit of grease was visible. Probably more than 8.
When the drum stopped, after a test run, a rim of grease surrounded the bearing.

BTW I recently replaced the knives and found the shear bar spacing was uneven. I was able to loosen the bolts and even out the spacing but could not get the 1/8" gap, with the Vermeer tool. When the shear bar bolts were tightened the bar moved back to the original position. Since the knives did not contact the bar I left as is.
Thanks, that's very helpful. Sounds like your shear bar experience was similar to mine. On my 2002 unit the bearing grease fittings for both sides are accessible.
 
If your frustrated at the anvil not staying in place when bolted down then remove it and clean the flat surface it mounts against (trash/rust/dirt etc builds up under it) and place the bolts into a drill chuck then spin them to check for being bent, even the flat washers can become deformed. The same should be done for the blades. Once your done refurbishing it you will find it hard to resist pulling over to shred random piles of tree debris until you spend a whole day feeding it!
 
If your frustrated at the anvil not staying in place when bolted down then remove it and clean the flat surface it mounts against (trash/rust/dirt etc builds up under it) and place the bolts into a drill chuck then spin them to check for being bent, even the flat washers can become deformed. The same should be done for the blades. Once your done refurbishing it you will find it hard to resist pulling over to shred random piles of tree debris until you spend a whole day feeding it!
Thanks, I was planning to do this (clean the gunk behind the bar), and even fabricated a tool for the purpose (you can't see where you're cleaning and a straight scraper won't fit because the drum is in the way), but then I noticed the bolts were pretty much at the end of their range of travel in the elongated holes anyway. Bolts and washers were new in my case. I have countless piles of random tree debris (snow, wind likes to bring down trees regularly on my property) so no concern about that..
 
Recently replaced my BC1000XL drum bearings, purchased from Vermeer. Not knowing if they were shipped pre lubricated by the bearing mfg. I contacted Link-Belt. Their engineer explained that depending on the buyers spec. they can be between 0% and 100% filled. He instructed to fill with grease until it can be seen from the purge port on the outer bearing.

On a 2008 machine it's easy enough on the left side but the bearing shield must be removed on the right site.

Using a hand pump grease gun I lost count of the number of pumps until a bit of grease was visible. Probably more than 8.
When the drum stopped, after a test run, a rim of grease surrounded the bearing.

BTW I recently replaced the knives and found the shear bar spacing was uneven. I was able to loosen the bolts and even out the spacing but could not get the 1/8" gap, with the Vermeer tool. When the shear bar bolts were tightened the bar moved back to the original position. Since the knives did not contact the bar I left as is.
Maybe the bar was cut to sharpen it and it lost material and a new one would be a fix.
 
Maybe the bar was cut to sharpen it and it lost material and a new one would be a fix.
To clarify...
the gap between the new knives and the shear bar is about 1/16". If the bar was cut the gap would have been larger.
I would have replaced the shear bar but the edge looked perfect. When the knives are sharpened a few times the gap will increase.
 
To clarify...
the gap between the new knives and the shear bar is about 1/16". If the bar was cut the gap would have been larger.
I would have replaced the shear bar but the edge looked perfect. When the knives are sharpened a few times the gap will increase.
Well once they are cut there is always that problem, I had to buy a new cutting bar because once I sharpened the knives a couple times I couldn't get the tight clearance because the cutting bar was cut..
 
If your frustrated at the anvil not staying in place when bolted down then remove it and clean the flat surface it mounts against (trash/rust/dirt etc builds up under it) and place the bolts into a drill chuck then spin them to check for being bent, even the flat washers can become deformed. The same should be done for the blades. Once your done refurbishing it you will find it hard to resist pulling over to shred random piles of tree debris until you spend a whole day feeding it!
Roger that about cleaning the knife mounting surfaces.

Don't know which was more frustrating...crawling underneath to access the anvil door or breaking free the anvil bolts.
I threw in the towel when the anvil would not stay in place. Where the anvil was mounted may have been tweaked.
Even with the anvil removed it would require a mirror to inspect it's mounting surface.

The mouse that dropped down on my face when I rotated the drum was a bonus LOL

Knives were reversed at some point.
The side that was cutting decent looked good, the opposite side looked as if it was chipping bolts.
 
Roger that about cleaning the knife mounting surfaces.

Don't know which was more frustrating...crawling underneath to access the anvil door or breaking free the anvil bolts.
I threw in the towel when the anvil would not stay in place. Where the anvil was mounted may have been tweaked.
Even with the anvil removed it would require a mirror to inspect it's mounting surface.

The mouse that dropped down on my face when I rotated the drum was a bonus LOL

Knives were reversed at some point.
The side that was cutting decent looked good, the opposite side looked as if it was chipping bolts.
Good thing he didnt startle you and hit a knive with your hand!
 
Roger that about cleaning the knife mounting surfaces.

Don't know which was more frustrating...crawling underneath to access the anvil door or breaking free the anvil bolts.
I threw in the towel when the anvil would not stay in place. Where the anvil was mounted may have been tweaked.
Even with the anvil removed it would require a mirror to inspect it's mounting surface.

The mouse that dropped down on my face when I rotated the drum was a bonus LOL

Knives were reversed at some point.
The side that was cutting decent looked good, the opposite side looked as if it was chipping bolts.
We could be working on the same machine! In my case the mouse was replaced by a pile of water that must have been sitting in the knife pocket in the drum which splashed in my face when I rotated it.
I also had my inspection mirror ready, and a tool I fabricated from Al bar stock bent at an angle to clean the bar mounting surface, but I decided to just go with the clearance I had.
In my case I got the bolts undone with a DeWalt 3/4" impact wrench that runs to 1300 lbft.
 
Need to watch for machine snakes hunting for machine mice.

For the first bolt I used a 4' breaker bar...not fun.
Tried out a new Milwaukee 1/2" impact toy. Spec at 400ft lbs. with my largest M18 battery there was no issue busting loose the remaining bolts.

Wondered if my neighbors could hear the cussing while getting this done.
 
Good idea, but the space is tight. The shear bar sits back from the opening making it difficult to work with.
The drum housing door is an obstruction that does not help matters.

Surprising Google did not provide guidance on this topic. Also it was no help when I struggled to change out the drum bearings.
Do most just park these at a Vermeer dealer for them to fix?
 
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