Bearcat 70554 Problems

[kornowsd]

Hi;

I have had a Crary Bearcat 70554 chipper/shredder for a while and, as of late, it's developed a bit of a problem. This unit has chipped/shredded 1000's of pounds of brush, so it's not new by any stretch of the imagination. There are 4-chipper knives on the large flywheel, two knives on the interior of the flywheel, two of them on/near the exterior. One of the exterior knives has taken to nicking the anvil every rotation... note that it is only ONE of the exterior knives and not both of them and it is NOT the entire anvil, it's just the "back" corner, nearest the edge of the unit.

Yesterday, I stripped this thing down to the frame, removed the belts and loosened the lock collars on the flywheel (both sides) and grabbed a long-handled, 5 pound, rubber mallet. Grabbed the handle with both hands and swung at that axle shaft until I was exhausted. The shaft/rotor moved a small amount as the blade didn't stick quite as much. No amount of force, with the hammer, changed the shafts movement after that point but it was better. So, I reassembled the unit, put on a fresh set of belts and fired it up. It was WORSE when it was all over and done.

The question, now, becomes - How do I loosen that shaft to allow the rotor to move within the chipper cavity? Knowing the issues that could result, I even grabbed a five pound sledge and hammered that shaft. I am aware and accept the issues of having done that. That didn't budge the thing, either. The other issue, with this thing is, if I move that shaft/rotor, toward the front of the unit, one of the outside knives, and two of the inside knives are going to have a bit more clearance than the specified 1/8" while the one knife that's hitting the anvil, will be correct.

Some other points to note about the unit. The metal, around the 3-point hitch connections has fatigued, considerably, and the pins and forked 3-point arm, have sagged quite a bit. Many of the bolts, and even the frame in/around the shredder screen has, seemingly, sagged to the point where it's hard to get the screen out of the unit any more. The "anvil" (if that's what it's called) in the shredder portion (just above the shredder screen) is somewhat bent upward in the middle, as well. This unit has been well-used, obviously.

I've looked at the flywheel, on the side with the knives. That wheel is true/flat all directions I've had opportunity to measure it. So, I'm not entirely convinced that flywheel is "bent" just by the one knife. The bearings, for the rotor, rotate smoothly, there is no end-play, and they don't move back/forth and/or up/down. They're tight and if I remove the chipper knives and give the rotor a small tug it'll rotate slowly about 10 revolutions before finally stopping. Each revolution is smooth and quiet with no obvious sticks, or bumps.

Do I now just use the units adjustments "against itself?" Do I grab the pillow bearings on the shaft connected to the PTO and square them to the anvil, with a slight tweak "to the outside" (front bearing further out from body than the rear one???) to compensate for the pressure of the belts? This could, possibly, pull the chipper frame/anvil back into square and stop the blade from hitting the anvil edge??? Or, is this unit a bit too far gone to even spend time with??? Repairable, or buy a new one? I'm out of ideas with this thing...

Thanks for any thoughts/help you might be able to provide. They're greatly appreciated.

Darwin

 

[Gordon Gould]

It seems to me - If you are sure the fly wheel is flat, all the knives are flat, the same thickness, and seated cleanly and properly on the fly wheel, then the shaft must be bent to cause only one knife to hit.

You said you loosened the lock collars. Did you just loosen the set screw or did you also use a punch and hammer to rotate them opposite the shaft rotation so they actually unlocked and could be removed.

 

[kornowsd]

Hey Gordon;

Thanks for the response. Set screws were removed, lock collars were loosened in the direction opposite flywheel rotation and they spun freely on the rotor shaft and moved back and forth, a bit. They were very loose. I sprayed WD-40 into the bearing/shaft junction, both ends, to loosen that up. In fact, looking at the design, if I want to move the rotor away from the rear of the machine, I should only have to loosen the rear collar - in the very first instance, just to get the thing to move. I need to loosen the front collar, once I've driven it through, to lock it into the new location, obviously...

I even knocked hard on the actual shredder body to get the bearing to drive loose from the shaft - I've seen that issue on some older equipment where the body panel bulged out/in and you had to bang on the panel to get everything to come loose. To no avail that way, either. Not sure what's locking that shaft to those bearings.

I called the local Bearcat technical rep. He tells me that the shredder box (PTO weldment is what Bearcat calls it) might be out of square and that's causing the issue. I called Bearcat, direct, and they told me that box can be substantially out of square and it will cause no issues to be so. So, contradictory information there. That said, though, I think that the actual Bearcat guy might be a better resource for that. He, also, didn't think that I could bend the flywheel. His thought was that my knives weren't sharpened evenly, causing only one of them to hit the anvil... that said, I can put ANY of my 4 knives in that position and they all do the same thing, so...

So, again, I'm at a loss. I can't say as the Bearcat tech offered me anything new/substantial to go with. Still frustrated with this thing...

Dar

 

[Gordon Gould]

So you don't agree that the shaft must be bent or the axis of the shaft is not perpendicular to the fly wheel surface. Seems like that would make one one blade hit.

 

[kornowsd]

You know, it's entirely possible that the shaft is bent. It sure as heck would make sense in terms of not being able to drive the shaft toward the front of the machine if that were the case. I guess I'll have to go out there with my engineers square and have a gander at the shaft-to-rotor square... Any other thoughts on this thing???

Thanks.

Dar

 

[GreatWhitehunter]

Either the wheel face is not longer true or the shaft is bent. There's no way for only one knife to hit without either of the two being the case.
Is there any play in the bearings, that you noticed?

Matt

 

[J_J]

Some pictures might help people see what you are talking about.

 

[kornowsd]

So... I spent some time, this morning, making some measurements on the thing. I marked a spot on the weldment casing, on the anvil side and grabbed a tape measure with 1/64" divisions. I rotated the flywheel until the first outside blade was lined up with the mark and measured the distance from the weldment to the blade. Then, I moved the flywheel a bit and measured above/below the blade. I rotated the flywheel 180 degrees and measured the same three spots on the opposite blade. The averaged difference was 3/64 of an inch. Not much but just enough to have the blade nick the anvil.

Now the problem, here, is getting that shaft to break loose from the back bearing and/or the front one - whichever is sticking. I grabbed my rubber mallet, today, and loosened the collars one more time and beat the living shinola out of that shaft. In fact, I hit the thing hard enough, a couple of times, to cause my John Deere 5055E (hooked to the shredder) to move a bit with the transmission park engaged! The shaft never budged. I tried driving the shaft the other direction, from front-to-back, with the same end-result. I guess, now, the question is, how to free that shaft from those bearings w/o destroying the bearings, or do I need to destroy them, and put new ones in to get this thing to work? Or should I get the proverbial bigger hammer and give the thing a stronger nudge????

I was going to try to get photos however all I have is a professional dSLR and a flash w/o remote capability. I can't get the camera/flash situated to get a quality photo of that interior. I don't have a flashlight strong enough to light up the interior to assist with the lighting, either. If I had one of those tiny point and shoots I would have, possibly, been able to shoot the shot.

Any thoughts about freeing up that shaft from the bearings?

Thanks.

Dar

 

[gwdixon]

Try Kroil or Ed's Red penetrating fluid and let it sit for a while.

With the amount of work that the chipper has done the likelyhood that sap and/or moisture has caused some corrosion.

If all else fails, try some heat. An O/A torch would be best but a propane hand-held might work if you can get the shaft and bearing hot enough. You may have to replace the bearings but it may be indicated anyway.

 

[J_J]

This is what my shredder blades look like on my 3pt BearCat.

If you are talking about the two large shaft bearings, I had to crack the bearing housing and then use a Dremel to grind a slot and then knock the bearing inside collar off.