My first splitter

I bought a thing from sears that you attach to the pin mount on your garden tractor so you can use a ball/chains/pin and it bent my freaken hitch plate on the mower. Went online to look at reviews on amazon and sure enough a bunch of people warned about it. Kinda pizzed.

 

Welp.

 

Bad weld job it happens but if I were you it would go back to Sam's. I am sure they will give you a new one.

Good thing to note is it has plenty of power.

 

Yep, bad weld...under warranty...I'd exchange it and make 'em give ya a gallon of oil (at least)

 

The thing I like about Eric's idea of fixing it is I'd get to keep the $30 in oil I've got in it. But man, I only have 1 hour of runtime on it, and it's 4 days old.

I'm kinda ingnorant on hydraulics, so could I put it on the back of my truck tailgate, undo a hose, tilt it back and try to salvage some fluid with a funnel? How much do you think I'd recover of the 1.3 gallons?

I'm on the fence whether to try another one or not. If it happens a second time, I guess I could just accept those welds are going to be bad and get a buddy to weld it up and move on. You said this happens a lot, Eric? Seems like it would be built to handle 7 tons of force no matter what, right?

Those 45 minutes it was working was great!

 

For that price I'd try to get another and have it welded if it happens again. That's a sweet lil splitter.

 

This. Sam's Club is pretty good about excepting returns.

 

The thing with hydraulic oil is it must be clean...think you can do this without getting dirt in it? I couldn't.
And you likely will only get half of the oil back out.

I would say re-weld this one, except for the one piece that held, and is now forever deformed...PITA to deal with. Sams will take care of ya on this I bet.
Man, that was a REALLY crappy weld! The next one has to be better...

 

Do you have a Vo Tech school near by? You could take the new exchanged unit and see if they have student/s who would weld it up before you use it. Take the pics you posted here so they know what they are attempting to mitigate. At least then you wouldn't have to deal with straightening things out when they break next time. I have had them weld aluminum before with great results.

 

I like the tailgate idea. Or maybe a picnic table that is next to the trailer or bed of the truck?

 

Well
That sucks
I would exchange it
All you need is a fluid pump to get all that oil out of there nice and clean.
That's what I used, (that I already had on hand that I use to change gear oil) , to suck every bit of fluid out of my splitter because there was water in the fluid, I wanted to get every bit out, and it worked great when I jacked the splitter up on one side to get the last of it out.
15 bucks, if the pump is brand-new there is no worries about contamination, Performance Tools Multi Use Pump W1145: Advance Auto Parts
There are other types of pumps like this out there this is one I used.


My 7 ton electric had a bad weld and so there was a hole for fluid to leak from the tank, I simply took it back to Harbor Freight and got a different one, good splitter with no problems after that

 

Good idea. Preemptive.

 

Thanks for the link! Something to think about.

 

Thanks for the replies and advice. I'll start by getting some oil out of it tomorrow, and seeing how clean it goes. I'll then take it back to the club and exchange for a new one. I called up there, and they said no problem at all.

"My first splitter, take 2!"

 

Keep us in the know as to how the new one goes.

 

very cool splitter and house, now all you need is a pair of these San Fransisco sneakers.

 

At the club now. Check this new price out. I guess I'll be ok with exchanging it now!

 

Should be getting 100 bucks back also.
Its just like them paying ya for assembly.