asplundh chipper help

[diesel88]

I have a 1986 12in. whisper chipper 4 cyl. with a big blower on the side of the drum. I want to grease the chipper drum, but i can't find any grease fittings on either sides. I had other chippers and the grease fittings were on the bearing plates. Can anyone help me, with information on how to grease these bearings and what type of grease to use. The machine only has 196 hours on it and has been sitting since '87. I'm afraid to run it, because i don't want to ruin the bearing untill i find out how to grease it. Thank you, any information will help.also were can i get a manual.

- Keith

 

[tree md]

Not sure about where the grease fittings are on that chipper but I would definitely make sure you grease the main bearings before you operate it. It was recommended to me to grease the main bearings everyday for sure and even grease them twice a day on days when I'm using it heavy. My chipper has decals with arrows pointing to all of the grease fittings. I also had to send off for the manual to my chipper (money well spent). If it has been sitting that long you'll probably want to go ahead and replace all of the hydraulic lines as they are sure to blow. Wouldn't hurt to replace all the hoses and lines period as they are likely to have dry rotted sitting that long.

 

[OLD CHIPMONK]

What- hydraulic lines on a drum chipper ? Grease that, the bearings might be sealed in heavy oil-filled bath. Just checking my memory-but it ain't too good.

 

[tree md]

What- hydraulic lines on a drum chipper ? Grease that, the bearings might be sealed in heavy oil-filled bath. Just checking my memory-but it ain't too good.

Doh! Was thinking of my own disk chipper. Had to replace every hydraulic line on it because it had sat for 10 years. Had to replace some other lines as well. It was in pretty good shape because it had been garaged but still had to replace some lines and hoses.

 

[Rftreeman]

They can't be greased, they are sealed bearings and if they go to making noise you have to replace them, I need to replace mine on my old wood chuck (asplundh) chuck and duck.

 

[Rick427]

Diesel88 - I recently bought an older Asplundh chuck 'n duck at an auction and got puzzled by the exact same thing, since greasing the drum bearings was high priority on my things to do.

The outboard drum bearing had an easily visible zerk. But the zerk for the flywheel side bearing was buried completely out of sight in a deep, narrow gap bridged over by the flywheel/fan housing. Its only access was a key-shaped slot positioned at least a foot higher than the blind fitting. This slot was where theoretically the bearing could be greased, provided you had a gun with a long rigid extension having the exact angle required at the tip plus knew exactly what you were doing.

To get a look at that zerk so I could figure out what was going on, I removed the flywheel/fan housing. Ah, I can see the zerk now. Then needed to add a 12" extension to my gun. The bearing took 30 pumps until grease started oozing out the seals. Bone dry and obviously rarely, if ever, greased.

I blame the chipper's design engineers rather than prior users. The average chipper user could not be expected to perform regular lubing on a spot that hidden and difficult.

If I ever have to pull the flywheel, I will plumb up vertically with 1/8" pipe to relocate that zerk to where it is easily accessible.

I don't know if your drum bearings need regular greasing like mine, are sealed, or are oil bath. All three styles were used around the time frame yours and my chipper were built. This is what mine looks like, is it similar to yours?


- Richard