Here is what I am working on. The hydraulic fluid did not appear to have water in it but it definitely had small metal flakes. I drained it and replaced with AW32. I added a filter with 2 magnetic plugs and stuck another mag plug in the return line. The engine/pump mounting plate is showing some green after pressure washing. I suspect this may be a John Deere trinket.
I still have a bunch of details to work out but here is how far I got yesterday. I replaced the steel lines with hose so I can try to set it up per the Cross valve instructions that say the plumbing is backwards. I changed the engine oil also. It was nasty but no obvious metal. I stuck in a magnetic drain plug in any case.
The original Briggs muffler is on the other end. It is still loud. I had to move the exhaust away because I was getting gassed.
Of course now I find this one. Dimensionally it should fit also.
My splitter is 9-1/2 ton at 2,000 PSI. The 4 way does not slow it down at all. The 6 way is too much money for sure.
I found the info on my pump here! Looks like I have a smaller 2 stage pump.
I like it! Nice work!
I started with Wife'nHubby's Didier's spec sheet and added info from the manuals that I could find from the brands that Didier supplied splitters to. I limited this to older 3", 3-1/2" and 4" diameter cylinder splitters. This is a work in progress in case anyone has something to add.Here's a spec sheet on Didier's - hope you can read it.
Shari
Using the cylinder speed calculator linked in this thread and the Viking pump manual I realized that my 19 second cycle time was a bit slow. The calculator came up with 15.4 seconds for my 7.2 GPM at 3,600 RPM pump. The 8 HP Briggs tached out at 3,580 RPM so that was close enough. Obviously my splitter is quite old and judging by the amount of metal that came out in the hydraulic oil there will be some internal wear contributing to the slower cycle time. I did notice that the suction line from the tank was stepped down from 1/2" NPT to 3/8" NPT. I swapped out the 3/8" stuff for 1/2 " plumbing and the cycle time dropped by 2 seconds. That gets the splitter to within 1.6 seconds of what the calculator says it should be running at. 2 seconds does not sound like much but I want to have at least 10 cord split for the next season.
Good day. Just wondering if there is a manual showing these steps, maybe with pictures, as i have to attempt to conquer this task to partake in splitting season this year?
I bought a larger 16 GPM pump that better matches the 8 HP Briggs engine. I was looking for a faster cycle since the ancient 7 GPM Viking pump seemed a bit slow at 19 seconds full cycle. The new pump knocked the full advance/retract cycle down to 9 seconds. I will do a better job on the return line plumbing. I used what was laying around.
