Hey Stumper. The lower gearbox is pretty simple. Just remove the four bolts and it will drop . Easier if you remove the cutting wheel first. Also remove the cover for the drive belts. There is a trick in installing the new one. Jack it up into the boom until it makes gentle contact with the shaft that should still be connected to the upper gear box. then you have to turn the shaft on the lower gear box and gently turn the upper box by playing with the belts while very slowly jacking the gear box up util you can feel the gears of the two shafts mesh. Then it should slip right up into place. If you have the lower gear box leaning at the right angle as it is entering the boom, it is pretty easy to just play with the drive shaft for the wheel and manipulate the upper shaft by tugging on the belts back and forth to get the gear pinion on the upper and lower gear boxes to mesh.. Easier with two people, but I've done a couple of them in the last few months by myself. The first one took me several hours, the last one took me ten minutes. Good luck. By the way, I use a small table jack the I can rest the gear box on and slide it around and tilt it which ever way I want to get the right angle going in.
The image is a lower gear box for the cutting wheel of a vermeer 352 stump cutter. The gear box is fairly new (over $1000) and has broken again. Seems the shaft pinion (#4) is not engaging the drive shaft. I disconnected the unit and the shaft pinion has about 3/4 of an inch play. It slides out about 3/4 " and no longer comes in contact with the drive shaft. Anyone know what hold that shaft to the drive shaft and if I can get it repaired without buying a new one? Or does anyone rebuild them or have a working used one for sale?
