Just got my Farm Pro (Jinma)
chipper from Homier. Here is how it went:
I ordered on a Wednesday, and it was shipped on the following Friday.
It took almost two weeks to get to me because the unit went to Florida instead of Ohio. I am lead to believe it was a shipping error. I called Homier and they pretty much washed their hands of the situation. They did not want to call the shipping company, just gave me their number and the shipping number for me to track. I called back to inform them of the problem, and essentially told me too bad.
I also called the shipping company, and they have yet to respond to my complaint about shipping.
The unit came in a metal cage connected to a wood pallet. All nuts and bolts were attached and it came with an empty plastic case. I am told that some got the unit with the hardware in the case.
Took the unit off my trailer with my loader and chain. took all the bolts off the cage and chained the unit to my loader using the two holes located on the fly wheel housing. When I lowered the unit I put it on a furniture dolly to roll it around the barn.
Put the base box together and lowered the unit into the box and bolted it up. Thanks to all the instructions in this thread, that went pretty smooth.
I next attached the feed platform and then the discharge shoot. CAUTION... when I put the feed platform on, it almost tipped over. I know others have posted about it being top heavy, but I didn't realize how much so. A set of sockets on the feed platform will make it tip. SO..for those of you yet to put it together, be careful. I then blocked the intake side of the box to make it solid to continue working on.
Next came all the per-use checks. Checked all the zerks, and they were there. A couple of them even had covers for them. All of the bearings on my machine only have one zerk fitting. This is different from other instructions and posts in this thread. The bearings look the same except the number of zerks. I operated every part that was involved with a bearing by hand and then greased again to make sure each was properly greased.
Took the feed roller shaft out as noted in this thread and inspected it. I did notice there was a gap where there was a cut out right where the end of on of the c clip was installed. I moved the c clip to eliminate the gap. Other than that, the unit looked in good shape.
Belts were all tight except one of the center belts seemed a little loose. Not sure how that can be tightened if all the others are snug. I decided not to replace them at this point. Will see how they do.
After going through all the pre-use instructions and set up, I rolled it over to the tractor, connected the top link, the drive shaft and the two lower links.
Took it out for a test run and...WOW! I was impressed. For everything else I looked at and for the price, what a great unit. I can easily see this as my most used attachment.
I put in small stuff to start with and then went to some bigger stuff. My NH TC40D never even labored. By the way, when I took it off the trailer, I used my loader, no rear weights of any kind, no problem lifting it off. And the TC 40D carries the 800lb unit with no problem also.
So...overall it is a great unit for the $. I took me all of about 8 hours from when I started to get it off the trailer until I chipped my first branch.
Do agree that the feed roller release needs to be changed. You can't hold it and pull stuff out if you need to at the same time.
Do have a question though about the chain that is on the drive shaft. Is it supposed to flop around as the shaft spins? And what is its purpose other than to keep the two halves from comming apart. Or, am I supposed to remove the chain. Right now it spins around just missing the draw bar.
Also, question about the feed roller shaft...at each end there is a hole. It is not threaded. Does anyone know what it is for? Would it be a good idea to tap the hole and put in a set screw?
I do want to thank each and everyone of you that have contributed to this thread. I know I would never have purchased this unit had it not been for these posts, and the assmebly and pre-use checks would have taken much longer. Thank you! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
