Old speeco Splitter

[Jags]

Looks like the chrome finished tarnished which you could remove with a tarnish remover or polish.

Expand the pic. It is beyond tarnished and into the "pitting" stage. No reasonable fix only replacement. Run it till it don't run no more.

 

[mellow]

Thanks for the links to the Didier thread over at arbor, after reading all 18 pages I am now even more confused about what this is, the engine setup is different than ones posted in that thread, let alone the ram. On the beam it has a speeco label on it, so far the only ID tag I have found.

 

[Jags]

Well - if its marked on the beam - who the heck knows, might be an early speeco design. In the 70's and even today, there is so much rebranding of stuff it can be hard to follow. It sure does look of the Didier design, but they had several versions of splitters.

 

[triptester]

It could be a Speeco. The original manufacturer of Didier splitters went out of business about the same time as Speeco started. They my have bought the patents or the complete business.

 

[Jags]

Good points, Triptester.

 

[mellow]

Interesting bit of info. After many many hours of searching I still have yet to find a picture of another speeco splitter that looks like this, wonder how rare these things are?

 

[mellow]

I had to convert the file to greyscale to try and get the writing to pop out but this is a picture of the tag on the beam, clearly a speeco product. I can't find any other tags by the engine or the oil tank.

 

[MasterMech]

Is it just me or does that tag read "Special Products Co, 482321, Golden Co" ?

 

[mellow]

Is it just me or does that tag read "Special Products Co, 482321, Golden Co" ?

Correct.
Special Products Co, Speeco, Incorporated
15000 W 44th Avenue # C
Golden, CO 80403-7258

 

[mellow]

Gave myself and the splitter a workout in the heat over the weekend, this older B&S engine does not like the heat, had to keep a fan on it and shut it down every 30-45 minutes to let it cool, which is OK as I was overheating as well. Found out the ram does leak a little bit when it is cycling back, nothing huge will just have to keep an eye on it. Overall it did the job, short of having to use an axe to finish off the split due to it being gum wood and being stringy all went well.

Picture of what I was splitting, some good size nasty gum wood:

 

[razzorm]

I am quite sure your splitter was made by Brave Industries. I have one very similar and they were sold locally by a store called Central Tractor back in the late 1980's maybe to the early 1990's in western Mass. They went out of business years ago..
Brave splitters are still made but by a new company who took over the Brave name, unfortunately they do not have parts for the old Brave splitters.
I have had my splitter raised because it was a back breaker using it the way it was.
Just today put a trailer ball on the front of my DR Power Wagon to move the splitter around, works great (will post a picture).
Should have done this a long time ago!!
I'm not sure what I did to get my name tagged to the above posting.

 

[mellow]

Thanks for the reply razzorm, but I have a Speeco splitter. I just got word back from Speeco about it, they gave me the manuals for it, even now knowing the model # LS400404 and that it is a Speeco 9 ton log splitter I still can't find any more info on it. I did find an old ad about it from 1984.

I have also attached the operating manual in case anyone else runs across this thread.

 

[mellow]

Been busy giving the splitter a work out, so far it has not met a piece it could not split, not bad for only 9 tons.

Shot of it working on some nasty gum wood over the weekend:

 

[tomc585]

I too was surprised that my 27ton never needed to push more than 10tons (i had a gauge ion it) to split some troublesome crotch wood.