# Im thinking of buying a 1999 Morbark 2400 auto feed. Comments on this machine?



## heromaker (Mar 4, 2012)

Hi, Im thinking of buying a 1999 Morbark 2400 auto feed. Does anyone have any opinions on this machine? I have read about clogging problems, because it doesn't have a blower on the discharge shoot. Thanks:msp_confused:


----------



## sgreanbeans (Mar 4, 2012)

I have a buddy in the land clearing/mulch biz, he has one, its sweet. Loads whole 18-20" trees into the thing. Not front yard trees, but your average highway tree, tall and skinny. He said it can take them bigger, but normally saves that stuff for his tub grinder, which is always fun to watch! Never the less, it chewed thru them with out missing a beat, on my wish list.


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 4, 2012)

heromaker said:


> Hi, Im thinking of buying a 1999 Morbark 2400 auto feed. Does anyone have any opinions on this machine? I have read about clogging problems, because it doesn't have a blower on the discharge shoot. Thanks:msp_confused:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLhAmxa8ZjA&context=C368e9c4ADOEgsToPDskK5jKtUZofvDkKq5FY_1t9f

Video of mine running I absolutely love it. It's a 2006 with 250hp. I have only ever plugged it up chipping shrubs or a whole poop load of walnuts.

I have absolutely abused it and it never has missed a beat. I feed it way over its compacity and it"s still running like a champ. I put stuff in it as wide as the rollers open and I'm still on the original clutch.

When it gets old I'm going to a bandit 1990 it will take a little more and can put more hp in it.

If the machine your looking at is 115hp Perkins it will struggle with the logs I'm running in the video. Our 250xp's are 140hp.

On an 18" 200 or more hp will let you chip 18" hardwood.


----------



## superjunior (Mar 4, 2012)

mattfr12 said:


> IMG950105 1 - YouTube
> 
> Video of mine running I absolutely love it. It's a 2006 with 250hp. I have only ever plugged it up chipping shrubs or a whole poop load of walnuts.
> 
> ...



I donno Matt, got a 115 perkins in mine and 18 in hardwoods doesn't bog it down one bit. At first I wondered why they would put a 115 in a high capacity chipper but after running one for several years I just look at it as I get great fuel economy with this machine


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 4, 2012)

superjunior said:


> I donno Matt, got a 115 perkins in mine and 18 in hardwoods doesn't bog it down one bit. At first I wondered why they would put a 115 in a high capacity chipper but after running one for several years I just look at it as I get great fuel economy with this machine



Not saying its bad. It will do it. But I'm just trying to make sure he knows what to expect. The auto feed just kicks in a good bit. On mine it will do 18' and only kick in once or twice on a 15 foot log.

With auto feed it would chip it with 50 hp. All depends on how fast you want it to do it. I always got a traffic jam at mine in the video theirs like 6 pines on the ground. And the crane will bring them faster than it will eat me with 250hp.

If that's not a problem 115 is probably fine. Well you can figure it out the one in the video is 250 cut the horsepower by over half to 115 probably just take twice as long.


----------



## no tree to big (Mar 4, 2012)

first question what do you have for the equipment already? crane? how big of a chip truck?
what kind of production do you need it to do? 
are you looking to just save some handling of medium sized logs? and have the capacity in the chip truck and are ok with it just whittling away at them? 
are you just an average tree co. or are you a high production co that has way to much work vs time? 

115 hp I don't know... we run 15" morbarks with 140hp and as well as they work they do not like 15" wood jammed down there throats we had a 18" with 200-250hp on demo when the dealer couldn't figure out some electrical problem on our one chippers and what we were jammin in that thing each day would take a week with 115 or even 140hp


----------



## superjunior (Mar 4, 2012)

mattfr12 said:


> Not saying its bad. It will do it. But I'm just trying to make sure he knows what to expect. The auto feed just kicks in a good bit. On mine it will do 18' and only kick in once or twice on a 15 foot log.
> 
> With auto feed it would chip it with 50 hp. All depends on how fast you want it to do it. I always got a traffic jam at mine in the video theirs like 6 pines on the ground. And the crane will bring them faster than it will eat me with 250hp.
> 
> If that's not a problem 115 is probably fine. Well you can figure it out the one in the video is 250 cut the horsepower by over half to 115 probably just take twice as long.



I hear ya man. Not a big fan of auto any thing on any machine (auto feed, auto sweep, ect..). It works, but I'd rather listen to the rpm's and make that call myself. Everything is auto this and auto that - too much electronics..


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 4, 2012)

heromaker said:


> Hi, Im thinking of buying a 1999 Morbark 2400 auto feed. Does anyone have any opinions on this machine? I have read about clogging problems, because it doesn't have a blower on the discharge shoot. Thanks:msp_confused:



Almost forgot! One of the problems I have seen in the older models is the down pressure on the feed rollers. For some reason not sure if it's the 1999 year or not. But my buddies struggled to eat small material the rollers didn't get tight enough together. So the machine would stall on small branches because the drum would pull it in like a chuck and duck.

He did get it figured out with some slight modification.


----------



## Kottonwood (Mar 4, 2012)

Hell yeah!

I got a 96 2400.... only paid 12 gs for it.

It has the 130 HP Cat engine in it. I have used better chippers.... but haven't owned better ones. Our other chipper is a vermeer bc1000xl and the guys hate taking it out.

Is that the tandem axle one or single? Mine is on a beefy single axle. It will bog down if you are trying to chip big logs in it, but we don't really chip logs, save em for firewood. The reason I like mine so much is for feeding it brush piles with the mini grapple. You can feed a huge load of brush in there and it just eats it up, really saves time on chipping. I have definitely fed big leads in it on crane removals and it sucks em right up. For some reason my auto feed doesn't work worth a damn though... gotta man the neutral bar. The one that I have, which I believe is smaller than the '99 really isn't all that heavy for what it can do. I haven't had to do much to mine other than the normal maintenance so I really can't comment to much on what might go wrong with it other than nothing has gone wrong with ours. We regularly abuse all our equipment.... so that's saying something.


----------



## Kottonwood (Mar 4, 2012)

Oh yeah.... we haven't had any trouble with ours clogging except for when we were doing emergency work in a blizzard, I think the snow was causing it to clog. Either way it is really easy to unclog, just need to remove two bolts and tilt the whole chute back... not like the damn vermeer which I cut out and fabbed up an access door for.


----------



## Kottonwood (Mar 4, 2012)

mattfr12 said:


> Not saying its bad. It will do it. But I'm just trying to make sure he knows what to expect. The auto feed just kicks in a good bit. On mine it will do 18' and only kick in once or twice on a 15 foot log.
> 
> With auto feed it would chip it with 50 hp. All depends on how fast you want it to do it. I always got a traffic jam at mine in the video theirs like 6 pines on the ground. And the crane will bring them faster than it will eat me with 250hp.
> 
> If that's not a problem 115 is probably fine. Well you can figure it out the one in the video is 250 cut the horsepower by over half to 115 probably just take twice as long.



Yeah 250 horses must be nice, but it totally works with less. Mine will stall out sometimes on big logs so we don't usually let the autofeed work, we have to actually man the neutral bar. It'll eat anything that you can fit in it, might just be a foot at a time though.


----------



## oldirty (Mar 4, 2012)

You want a grapple machine go with the woodsman790 .... 375hp john deere. You don't have to sit on top of the machine either... lol. Morbark is tied with vermeer for last place in regards to chippers in my opinion ..


----------



## Kottonwood (Mar 4, 2012)

gotta agree with ya on the vermeers... I will never own another. Love my morbark though.

I don't know much about the grapple machines but I never got the whole sitting on top of the machine thing... I think I would be strapped in sitting up there. I don't see why it is that much harder to put the grapple controls at an accessible point from the ground.


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 5, 2012)

oldirty said:


> You want a grapple machine go with the woodsman790 .... 375hp john deere. You don't have to sit on top of the machine either... lol. Morbark is tied with vermeer for last place in regards to chippers in my opinion ..



Woodsman is around 130k tho. I looked at them for a bit but couldn't find any dealers close. I'd have to get to use one to drop that kinda dough. He's looking at a 1999 which is probably 20-25 grand.

The sitting on top was kind of selling point for me. Like that a lot. When it gets old I think I'm gonna do a 20" next. Morbark 20" or bandit 1990.

I got my grapple machine for 40g"s. you guys ever use or see a big cone head in action? They never seemed to catch on don't know if they turned out any good.


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 5, 2012)

PatriotTreeCO said:


> gotta agree with ya on the vermeers... I will never own another. Love my morbark though.
> 
> I don't know much about the grapple machines but I never got the whole sitting on top of the machine thing... I think I would be strapped in sitting up there. I don't see why it is that much harder to put the grapple controls at an accessible point from the ground.



It's supposed to be so you have good visibility. And it does when your sorting through brush.

And you both right about Vermeer. 80 some hp in a 12" and 115 in an 18" is all they offer? They don't make a grapple machine anymore. Stopped it in like 2007. 

I


----------



## heromaker (Mar 5, 2012)

*Thanks for the info*

I went and saw it today, probably will buy it. Its an ex-city unit. its has been very well maintained. It is a single axle with a john Deer 115hp engine. the smaller engine is probably the reason it is still legal to operate in CA. I run a small tree biz. I do remove large trees 5 to 10 days a month. I don't do wood anymore so Id rather chip it or give it away and have some one take the wood from my site before I finish the Job. It is a huge machine for residential work but I would rather go big than screww around with material. :msp_thumbup:


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 5, 2012)

heromaker said:


> I went and saw it today, probably will buy it. Its an ex-city unit. its has been very well maintained. It is a single axle with a john Deer 115hp engine. the smaller engine is probably the reason it is still legal to operate in CA. I run a small tree biz. I do remove large trees 5 to 10 days a month. I don't do wood anymore so Id rather chip it or give it away and have some one take the wood from my site before I finish the Job. It is a huge machine for residential work but I would rather go big than screww around with material. :msp_thumbup:



You'll be fine I've taken mine down some pretty tight driveways. The 115 I's a common size to find. Even with less hp is gonna be way faster than any 12" your gonna use. Just because of the size of the infeed. 

I tow mine to job sites with my pickup a lot. Makes it pretty easy to put it just about anywhere. Get the winch for it if it doesn't have a grapple.

If not your next post will be you wanting something with a grapple. Because you won't even be able to flex that machines muscles hand feeding it.

I only will do a Deere or CAT engine around here I could walk and get the parts for them.


----------



## heromaker (Mar 5, 2012)

*Morbark 2400*



mattfr12 said:


> You'll be fine I've taken mine down some pretty tight driveways. The 115 I's a common size to find. Even with less hp is gonna be way faster than any 12" your gonna use. Just because of the size of the infeed.
> 
> I tow mine to job sites with my pickup a lot. Makes it pretty easy to put it just about anywhere. Get the winch for it if it doesn't have a grapple.
> 
> ...



I really appreciate you telling me about how you can tow it fairly easily, that was one of the main concerns I had. I most likely will get it now. Thankyou for you time. :msp_thumbsup::msp_thumbsup::msp_thumbsup:


----------



## mattfr12 (Mar 5, 2012)

heromaker said:


> I really appreciate you telling me about how you can tow it fairly easily, that was one of the main concerns I had. I most likely will get it now. Thankyou for you time. :msp_thumbsup::msp_thumbsup::msp_thumbsup:



ya its not that much heavier than a bandit 250xp like 2k i can't tell much of a towing difference between the two. i pull it around with my gmc 3500. machine should be under 10k. for the kind of chipping compacity your gonna have its worth it. i tow mine around with a pickup to. mines a good bit heavier than what your buying endless you have the grapple. i think mine is 14k not sure tho but i know the grapple adds 2-3k.

i did upgrade the hitch on my pickup tho factory one was only good for like 10k. for 300$ i bought a class 5 or 6 that was good for like 18k. 300$ was installed to.


----------



## heromaker (Mar 6, 2012)

*Morbark 2400*

Right on. Im in the process of buying the machine. Thanks again for the info.
God Bless
:msp_wink:


----------



## a_lopa (Mar 6, 2012)

The infeed is narrower in the pre 2003 models,and they DO plug up.

There a good strong machine and easy to fix.


----------

