Feed motor fell off chipper today

Jeff

Jeff

Branched out member
Location
Marlborough, MA
I couldn't understand what the groundies meant: the bottom feed wheel hydraulic motor fell off. Huh? This is a Morbark M15R, and the motor bolts to the feed wheel shaft (not the chipper frame) and then just slips over a post on the chipper frame to hold it stationary while it turns the feed wheel. Anyway, the 1-1/4" or 1-1/2" solid steel shaft that runs thru the feed wheel sheared off, outside the bearing that holds the feed wheel in place. Nothing hit it, there's never been any issues with it, and neither end of the broken shaft shows any rust from a previous crack. It was just laying on the ground, hoses still attached, turning away at nothing. We lashed it to the chipper frame and finished the day without any huge issues, just harder feeding. Any ideas??
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Shoddy recycled metal. That blows. Hopefully Morbark will back up the part. I have an M14r, I'm going to keep an eye on mine, not that there would be much to see.

Tom
 
Ooops, just realized that top photo got rotated to the left. You can see the bottom feed wheel to the left in the photo, with the shiny spot where the motor was, and the motor hanging to the right in the photo, where we tied it to the frame.

Edit again: Only when viewed on my computer; on my phone it's oriented correctly. Weird.
 
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tomthetreeman said:
Hopefully Morbark will back up the part
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Phone call to the dealer (right at closing time today) and they said the shaft is integral to the bottom feed wheel, and they could sell us a new 1 for $800 plus shipping. Plus us putting it in. I'm thinking someone at the factory needs to know about this. As you can see in the top photo, it's located inside the frame, between the fuel and hydraulic tanks, underneath the covered drive for the top feed wheel. You couldn't hit this thing with a falling branch, a machine or a stump if you tried.
 
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Jeff, I would talk to the salesman that sold it to you, if possible. He is the one who talked you into to the product, and who needs to put his $ where his mouth is. That's way too young of a machine for a part like that to fail, IMO.
 
Hydraulic motor shafts aren't that hard to replace and aren't that expensive. Failing this early does seem like a manufacturer defect. I've had them fail before but after more years than yours. These motors do bounce around a bit when running and fatigue is a factor.
 
Gorman said:
A 2012? Ahhh, I'd talk to the salesman. Let him know this would certainly influence your next purchase choice.
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A) Our salesman left the dealer for greener pastures
B) Truthfully, I'm not sure if it would influence our decision. We love this chipper! Today's problem sucks, and we've had one other not fully resolved issue, but this 15" 140 horse chipper will greatly out feed and out chip our 15" 140 horse Bandit 1290XP.

But yes, I want to chase this up the dealer/distributor/manufacturer ladder. Definitely something wrong here.
 
Stop by a metal shop that has an old line (knowledgable) metal worker and show him that picture and discribe the situation to him. I think he would fuel your suspicion that Morbark should handle it.

I believe I see crystaline structure in the metal at least at the center area of the shaft. An axle/shaft should be made out of tough steel that would twist if you applied too much force not cast iron like structure that would crack or shatter.

Metal type and hardness is easily testable for any company that wants to know by the way. Tell Morbark the online community - and world - eagerly await their reply.

Actually I just remembered how responsive Morbark was to Nick from WI once he went past his local dealership on an issue.
 
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First off...Like Dr. McCoy...I'm an arborist not a metallurgist!

In a case like this my guess is that the shaft would have been made with a tough, but brittle, shell and a core that is tough to take the abuse.

Depending on the mix of metals and heat treatment a shaft can be made to fit many needs. Rarely are industrial metals the same through and through.

A few years ago I spent some time talking with an engineer from a company that made knives for paper cutting machines. They thought that making chipper knives would be a simple addition to their product line. He gave me a good insight about how knives are made so that they perform at the given task.

A few months later we talked again. He admitted that it wasn't as simple a process to make chipper knives. They needed to be three layers thick. A core that was tough to withstand impacts. Second layer tough but a bit malleable. Then, the hard part...in more ways than one, they found...to have the outer edge, edge only, hard enough to hold an edge but not so brittle that they chipped. Since chipper knives have higher impacts on such a variety of materials this was the challenge they faced. Cutting paper was smooth, easy, uniform. Low impact there.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
 
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Jeff I had this happen in June, last tree of the day .... And I mean tree, we were throwing a pretty big poplar through it all at once and the in feed slowed right down, mine was twisted right around ! Root of the problem was a worn out bearing and chain that's by the motor, caused excessive vibration and the bolts stripped right out and broke that corner right off!!! We ended up replacing both bearings chain and had the wheel balanced out to make sure it was still true, and was, $1800 later I was back in business! I had everything re threaded obviously and put more heavy duty grade bolts in. All good now, we monitor it a lot now !
 
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