Brand new pump locked up?!

On the splitter I just built I kinda wanted a pump with a 90* inlet, but the one I got was straight...I mounted the pump with the inlet facing forward (away from the tank) and just looped the wire reinforced inlet hose under and around the pump...works fine.

 

Here's a mid build pic...the OEM Huskee suction port is right behind the pump there...

 

It wouldn't be hard to retap it with a 1" pipe tap. It should work just fine. Yhen you can use a 1" barb.

Otherwise, cut the bend off the fitting and use the stub with the threads on it. You could weld a barb on it.

 

I'd take the pump if you're tossing it.

 

My back-up plan has always been to just rotate the pump 90 degrees, to get the inlet facing the right direction again with this silly elbow fitting. It means changing some things on the output side, which is complicated by the way they routed the output hose for the horizontal/vertical configuration change. Gotta get the thing back out of the shop this week, since I have another big job coming in that will require the space. Right now I have the splitter tipped up on end, so I could do the pump swap without draining the almost-new ATF out of the tank.

I'll look at the re-tapping option. It'd require full disassembly of the pump, since I'd not want all the chips from redrilling and retapping to end up inside. Remember, 1" NPT requires 1-5/32" tap drill, and the present tapped hole is bottomed into a shoulder.

 

I have had my pump apart twice. Pretty darn easy. The elbow has a lock nut and sealer on it. I loosened the lock nut and used a large ratchet extension stuck into the elbow to rotate it so it pointed the right direction. It took some effort because of the sealer. I was tempted to port the intake of the pump while it was apart, but my flex shaft was broken. I had considered making a jig for my lathe faceplate, but I didn't have time to mess with that. It's a sharp turn and long skinny passage to get to the far end of the high flow gears. I would like to see that passage taper open as it gets closer to the intake. I had to get mine out of the shop too, or I would have fixed that issue. My pump measures around 92 db at 3600 rpm.

 

Here is the intake side of the high flow gears. The fluid comes in through the dark hole and turns 90⁰ toward the camera. The hole going the other direction goes to the high pressure gears. My thought was to taper the channel about 15⁰, or as much as I could get.

 

Well, the job is done. I just rotated the pump 90 degrees, put a longer suction line on, and reconfigured the elbows on the output side to work with the existing hose layout.

I took some photos and was going to post them, but this forum has a file size limit on photos that won't allow direct upload without resizing, and I don't care enough to bother with that. ;-)

Also threaded a 1/2" NPT probe thermometer and a #10-32 sintered bronze vent into a 1-1/4" NPT stainless bushing, and threaded that whole rig into the OEM dipstick hole in the tank. Now I can see if my ATF is running too hot, and consider whether an oil cooler is in order. I'm only running 7 gallons of ATF, which I believe is way below minimum recommended tank capacity for this flow rate.

bonus: I bought a probe almost the same length as my dipstick, so now the probe thermometer is my new dipstick. Scribed some marks on it for min/max fill... done.

 

Do you have an auxiliary tank? If you have a Huskee 22 ton the tank only holds about 3.5-4 gallons filled to the full mark...at least mine did, that why I added the auxiliary tank, for about 7-8 gallons total capacity

 

Sounds like you got it figured out and then some. If you can put your hand on the tank or pump, it's not too hot. Mine runs around 120°. I can hold my hand on it, but it's a bit warm. I have a cooler that I can add if needed. A regular transmission oil cooler will do fine, either stacked plate or loop and fin. It doesn't take much to remove heat. Automotive power steering systems use a short piece of tubing looped against the frame to cool the fluid.

 

Aww comeon...! We need pics, we need pics, we need pics!
Just crop them a bit, they'll go!

 

No aux tank, just the OEM, which is exactly 4.0 gallons when filled to the top. Since filling it to the top results in fluid leaking out the vent on a hill or when it thermal cycles, it's probably closer to 3.5 gallons max working capacity. Total system capacity according to Huskee is 7.0 gallons, and my last ATF change consumed 6 gallons, without totally purging the lines. No matter how we skin this cat, the system and tank capacity are a little light, based on typical recommendations for 19 GPM.

However, working in my favor, I'm running ATF instead of hydro fluid. As we already discussed by PM, typical ATF working temperature is higher than single-weight hydro oil, assuming the pump and cylinder seals can all handle the higher temperature. Most automatic transmissions today run around 180F, and most multi-weight oils in engines today run 210 - 220F. The old "rules" of 120F max oil temperature, based on single weight oils, needn't govern us, anymore.

I expect temperature rise is relatively constant, so if it runs 120F on a 20F day, then it might run 180F on an 80F day. I try to do all of my splitting in cold weather, when the ground is frozen. But lack of freezing weather or other priorities sometimes confound that effort, so I'm often found playing catch-up at 90F on July 4.

That's the plan, and in fact my engine already has a generator on it, so I can even power a cooler-mounted fan set. It will have to be a high-flow cooler, probably not the typical automotive transmission cooler, but there are plenty of options for that.

Fine... you twisted my arm. They're not that exciting though, just a regular old Huskee 22-ton, with a few upgrades:

1. Replaced suction bung with a thin-wall steel fitting to 1" hose.
2. 1" suction hose
3. Replaced 3/8" ID hard line between cylinder ports with 5/8" hose.
4. Replaced flathead 6.75 hp Briggs with 10.6 hp OHV Intek.
5. Replaced 11 GPM pump with 18.5 GPM.
6. Added electric start
7. Added tank thermometer probe
8. Added log catcher

If I were to start over, I'd just have bought a 34 ton Swisher, to get the larger tank capacity, bung, lines, and pump, and downgrade the cylinder to 4" to get better cycle time. In fact I considered doing that, before this latest pump upgrade from 16 to 18.5 GPM. But I like how light and portable this little Huskee is, and love the electric start that I had already added a few years back, since I do a lot of my splitting in very cold weather when pulling a starter cord runs between difficult and futile.

 

And the results?

 

I split about a cord today, first chance to use it with the new pump. The splitting is definitely faster, fast enough in fact that I don't think I'm even reaching steady-state temperature before it's time to stop and buck more rounds. My usual process is to fill the 61" bucket (1/3 yard) on my tractor loader with rounds, park that next to the splitter ($45k log lift!), and then swing rounds from the bucket to the splitter.

I tried timing it, and I'm getting something close to 8 seconds full round-trip, which makes sense. Nominal should be 7 seconds on this pump GPM, but when I try to time the thing I've always gotten longer than nominal times, even on the OEM 11-second pump.

As to fluid temperature, I watched it all day, and maximum I observed was 155F at 21F outdoor, so T[rise] <= 134F . Again, that may not have been true steady-state, but probably close. If we say maximum operating for ATF is around 185F, then I'm good using this rig up to 50F outdoors only. That'll work for the next few months, but I'm obviously going to want to put an oil cooler on this at some point. I often catch up on some splitting in summer.

edit: I'm finding at least a few sources calling out 200F as a safe operating temperature for ATF. Not sure what the seals in the cylinder and filter are rated to handle, or if there are any seals in the pump itself that we need to worry about.

 

Well, I'd like to assume this is just coincidence, but the bolt holding my wedge to the end of the cylinder rod snapped today. I was moving fast at the time, but it wasn't exactly working hard, it was only straight-grained ash that was splitting pretty easy. Besides, the new pump's OPV is supposed to be set at the same 3000 psi as the old pump.

I know the protruding end of the bolt takes some abuse, just from sticking out there and rubbing thru the splits or catching any debris on the return, so no surprise that's the end of the bolt that broke. It snapped on the shear plane between the rod surface and the inside face of the wedge trunnion.

I have never used any stop collars for short-cycling this splitter, which I know have caused issues like this, the wedge and cylinder are all OEM to the Huskee 22-ton. Anyone else seen this happen?

 

Here's an old photo I had laying around of the wedge configuration, in case anyone's not already familiar with the old Huskee 22's:

 

Having been to plenty of FHC GTG's I have used lots of different splitters and it seems like many/most of them have those bolts looking like very near future scrap metal...I think where many people screw up is in thinking that the bolt is supposed to take the load, and its not! They tighten the crap outta the bolt and pinch the wedge onto the cylinder ram...no way a 1/2" bolt will stand up to 20-30 tons! The end of the ram should be pushing directly on the wedge, the bolt should really only serve to pull the wedge back and hold the ram in place.
As you know, I used an aftermarket cylinder on the splitter I just finished, and I had to shim between the ram and the wedge a bit to make sure that the bolt will not be taking on undue load...I used a grade 5 bolt and a nylok nut so the bolt could be snugged up and stay put without being cranked down.

 

I have broken bolts on my 25T Speco before. I keep spares for it.

 

Here's a pic where you can see the shim that I had to add between the new ram and the wedge...some of the difference was in the aftermarket cylinder, some of if was having to compensate for wear on the back of the wedge. The nut is not even tight enough to pinch the washers that I put on to keep the ram centered on the wedge.

 

Thanks for posting that, brenndatomu. It happened right at the end of the day, literally my last round at sunset, so with cleaning everyting up, I didn't get much of a chance to autopsy. But my first thought was exactly this, that perhaps there's some gap between end of rod and wedge. You'd think if a gap had worn in there, then the holes in the wedge would have wallowed equally to the wear, but closer inspection tomorrow will reveal.

I also didn't get a chance to check the grade of the bolt, for replacement purpose, but I'm guessing you're just going with regular grade 2? Easier to replace bolts than rod ends, right? One old photo I found in my collection of this splitter seems to show the triple strike mark of grade 5 on the head, but I'm not heading out now in pajamas to find out.

Whatever I use for replacement, I think I'll leave less bolt extending out, than the OEM. Between their split lock, heavy hex nut, and extra sticking out past that, they're a full 1" out past the outside face of the wedge trunnion. A nylok jam nut would let me reduce that by at least 1/2" with no cutting, and still have a thread or two out past the nylon.

I'm sure I'm putting more wood thru this splitter than anyone at Speeco ever intended for a homeowner-grade unit, which also factors into things, I'm sure. But as mentioned previously, I've grown sort of fond of this lightweight little rig, esp. with the upgrades I've made, it honestly suits my needs better than anything bigger or heavier would.