Today was the day the splitter landed! I met the driver at the end of my road with the dump trailer. We matched his lift gate to my deck height and I was home in a couple minutes. Backed it in the garage, fired up the heat, and got to work. On a side note, the Hot Dog Heater got the garage up to temp quickly but I did an experiment after that. I opened door in the garage that leads directly to the basement. Despite it being so cold and windy outside, the heat coming up the stairs from the wood furnace kept the garage at 55 and the LP heater never kicked on again all day. I was stoked about how well that system worked. I had to break down the crating in the trailer as I couldn't unload 900# all at once. Then I used my Warn Pullzall battery winch to back the trailer/motor/tank section down some ramps. Once it was rolled out of the way, I got the beam positioned the long way on the pallet and slowly slid it down to the floor and stood it up. Got it bolted to the cart then hooked up the hoses and battery. All that was left after that was to dump 15 gallons of ATF into the tank. She took a bit for the fuel to prime but once the Kawasaki got going it ran smooth and sounded just like my lawn tractor. While it was still in the warm garage I used my heat gun and some acetone to remove all the stickers. I also added a lanyard to the key so it wouldn't get lost while trailering it around the property. Lastly I added an SAE pigtail to the battery for easy maintenance charging in the off season. Anyways, too cold to test today as it's 17 outside and the wind is still over 20mph. I've got a trailer load of red oak rounds from when I limbed my trees last week with the lift. So, when the temps get back up to normal, I'll break her in a bit. (Not that 8-10" wood is much of a test but all I have right now...) Here's a few pics before all the stickers were removed. She's naked now but I was too cold after putting her away to take any more...
I'll report once I get some time on it. One thing I need to do is install an hour meter. Going to order one now. I can say from just bleeding the hydro system that the cycle time is quick. I didn't time it but will do next time I run it. I used ATF instead of hydro fluid because Swisher recommended it for colder climates. Not that MA is super cold but I did notice some very slow cold cycle times on my last unit until it warmed up. I was able to get 3 5vers of semi syn Dex/Merc ATF for 75 per on Amazon so not too painful.
Another thing I wanted to post about is this. This splitter is so much better designed that the DHT it replaced. The balance on the beam and the tongue weight when in horizontal is so much better. I can easily got from vertical back to horizontal with one hand pulling now and the tongue weight can be lifted with a couple fingers. The DHT was a back breaker in both regards.
aw, come on man..... I was just out in low single digits this morning cutting for about 6.5 hours. It did warm up to 20° though by the time I was done for the day. I LOVE going out in the cold weather. Doesn't take long for the ole' blood to get going and a layer or two of clothes come off the torso. Only bad part about cutting in cold weather is my breathe gets in the way of looking at my cut length mark on my chainsaw....so I have to time breathing when I am not looking to mark a length on what I am cutting. Nice looking splitter. I didn't put ATF in mine, however I normally split more towards spring, so it's not that cold out.
It's not the cold brother... It's the wind. It's blowing at 25-35 all day. Right now it's 13 out but the WCF is -4. As much as I wanted to play, I wasn't going to freeze to do it. Bottom line, I'm tender and I'm ok with it... LMAO...
That's a mighty fine lookin splitter fo sho! Maybe I'm off base here, but sure seems to me like a big jump in price for what you get, above and beyond a "standard" splitter, if you see where I'm coming from...I know, better design/materials/more HD, better workmanship, faster, more options...but triple the price? Seems like better profit margins to me...good thing you found a deal on 'er...
When competing with China, that's just the way of it... I think it has as much to do with build quality as it has to does county of origin... I'd gladly spend more to support my fellow Americans and get a better quality product to boot... but that's just how I choose to spend my money. Everyone has their own priorities... I didn't pay triple the cost of a China splitter either. $2850 delivered. CountyLine 40 ton is 2k and isn't the same machine...
