Tractor powered wood splitter

[Captain Hornet]

I have been splitting by hand for at least thirty years. But now that I've got older I was thinking I might enjoy a wood splitter. I have a Massey Ferguson 255 tractor with remote hydraulics so I borrowed a neighbors wood splitter. It sticks out the back of the tractor and is horizontal only. So I find myself working to lift the 100 lb rounds up on to the splitter. It has a four inch cylinder and it really struggles to bust any of the oaks or hickory. I had to hand split a bunch so they were smaller and lighter to get on the splitter, but why do that if you have a real splitter? Also, no table which it really needs. The wedge is solid and the piston pushes the log so it often sticks and I need the sledge to unstick it. So I guess I need to buy a splitter. Do they come with five inch cylinders or tables? What brand name should I be looking for? Tell me what I need. David

 

[xman23]

Cap, I believe my MTD and most other splitters move the ram at two speeds with a 2 stage pump. This speed change is switched by the pressure. So when the ram is stalled it pumps at much less volume and much greater pressure. Using the tractor hydraulics I wouldn't think you have this feature. The pressure the pump will produce before it goes into bypass may not be suitable for a splitter you are using. Yes a bigger diameter ram is a solution. Take a look at the splitters that run from the PTO. I bet you could find one of those used. My ram is approximately 1.5", and at 20 ton no wood can stop it. It sounds like you have found the issue with a splitter that can only split horizontally. IMO you need to be able to do vertical. One thing I see wrong with some of the designs is when horizontal mode the room to stand and the area the split falls on the opposite side. Many of the engines are mounted toward the back of the axel. Right in line to get hit by the falling split. Mine does not have this problem. Others here will comment what they like or dislike with there splitters.

 

[wkpoor]

Take a look at this thread https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/74682/ post #1 shows a pic of my setup. If done right tractor powered splitters can be both unstoppable and fast and flexible. Mine goes vertical, can raise and lower to desired working height, can also pull a trailer or wagon behind with the receiver.
First thing I read was your rig uses the tractor hydraulics. I'm not at all fond of that. First its a terrible wast of resource since the pump is most likely of small displacement and pressure may not be all that much either. PTO powered pumps take advantage of the power in an efficient way. You want large displacement so you can basically idle the tractor. Currently you would have to run the tractor at 540pto to get what little volume you have. With good pressure and volume you'll have awesome speed that can tear right through the tough ones without slowing down to shuttle into the second stage. You've got that big engine up there, it just needs to be put to better use. Also a tractor diesel idling won't use anymore fuel than a 5hp Briggs screaming at 3600rpm.

 

[jimbom]

We had a MF 255 with independent PTO and stock hydraulics. It was a beast with that diesel. The stock hydraulics should be able to get 10 tons out of a 4" ram if the pressure is up to spec. We had a front-end loader on ours. It was slow, but it would pick the tractor up. I am guessing any splitter that uses the tractor hydraulics will be marginal.

I think a three point hitch mounted splitter with a PTO mounted pump would be perfect for the old Massey. Power will not be an issue with the correct pump. Wish we still had ours.

 

[OhioBurner©]

You couldnt lower it any more? The fellow I was buying wood from uses a 3pt on his old ford tractor, it will drop and lie right on the ground for those heavy ones or raise up to a comfortable hieght for rounds off the nearby trailer or stack.

 

[SolarAndWood]

This is my 3 pt setup. My Ford is similar vintage to your tractor and smaller yet still gets the job done. However, I teed off the lines to the loader. If you look at tractordata, it looks like you would get more than twice the flow if you did this instead of using the remotes.

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/7/6/764-massey-ferguson-255.html

 

[velvetfoot]

I'm totally no expert, don't have any of this stuff or anything, although in some perfect world I could, but, doing a search, this place seems to sell both hyd. and pto vert/horiz splitters. The prices are not bad, in my opinion, compared with standalone splitters.
http://www.logsplittersdirect.com/style/3-point-hitch-log-splitters.php

 

[Captain Hornet]

Thanks for the replies. I was wondering about the tractor pressure . I plumbed a gauge to the pressure side input to the splitter. Found I had 2150psi and that is what the tractor maintenance manual calls for. The cycle times are fine and it doesn't need to be faster. I usually run the tractor at 1250 - 1300 rpm and it doesn't seem to make a difference if I run it faster. This kinda works after a fashion but I think there must be a better way. David

 

[certified106]

I had a 3pt hitch Brush Hog Brand hydraulic splitter on a Ford 861 powermaster tractor and was less than impressed running off of the tractors hydraulic system. In fact the splitter is still in my Dads' barn and I bought a Huskee 22 ton that I am thrilled with. The main gripes I had about the splitter on the tractor were it was slow, I had to run the tractor to split wood, and it tied my tractor up so I couldn't have a trailer hooked to it to haul split wood or use the loader to move large rounds. A decent 22 ton splitter isn't much if any more than a good 3pt hitch splitter and it comes with it's own power house and is completely portable. It just always griped me to have a large tractor sitting there with the hour meter ticking away adding up hours to just run a splitter plus maintenance on a splitter costs a heck of a lot less money than servicing a full size tractor. All that being said I know guys who love there 3pt hitch splitters so it really just depends on what you want. If you go with a tractor mounted splitter I would definitely go with one like wkpoor's that has it's own pump rather than depend on the tractor hydraulics.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Captain, over 20 years ago, because of an injury we were forced to look at hydraulic log splitters. I found plenty of splitters that guys had on the tractors but at that time all we found were not very good at all. We ended up buying a 20 ton MTD and have since split well over 200 full cord of wood. This week we had our first problem with the splitter. I had to fix the starter rope as it finally broke about 5" off but that was a quick and easy fix. Other than that it has been trouble free. It can be used vertical or horizontal but I just can not use it horizontally so all our wood is split the right way; vertically.

The 20 ton will split everything we need split and that includes elm. We did have one piece of elm several years ago that I threw out. That one did stop the splitter. Perhaps I could have split it by messing around with it for a while but it just was not worth monkeying around with for me; I threw it on the brush pile.

Our splitter has a 5hp B&S engine and as for logs getting stuck, occasionally we do get one to stick but if so, all we have to do is raise the ram all the way up and the log will fall down as it is built to release those stickers.

Good luck no matter which way you go. btw, the Huskee splitters are very close to the splitter we have and they can usually be bought for $999. However, in your area you may have to do some searching as I doubt many splitters are sold down there so there won't be much inventory.

 

[wkpoor]

I had a 3pt hitch Brush Hog Brand hydraulic splitter on a Ford 861 powermaster tractor and was less than impressed running off of the tractors hydraulic system. In fact the splitter is still in my Dads' barn and I bought a Huskee 22 ton that I am thrilled with. The main gripes I had about the splitter on the tractor were it was slow, I had to run the tractor to split wood, and it tied my tractor up so I couldn't have a trailer hooked to it to haul split wood or use the loader to move large rounds. A decent 22 ton splitter isn't much if any more than a good 3pt hitch splitter and it comes with it's own power house and is completely portable. It just always griped me to have a large tractor sitting there with the hour meter ticking away adding up hours to just run a splitter plus maintenance on a splitter costs a heck of a lot less money than servicing a full size tractor. All that being said I know guys who love there 3pt hitch splitters so it really just depends on what you want. If you go with a tractor mounted splitter I would definitely go with one like wkpoor's that has it's own pump rather than depend on the tractor hydraulics.

Using the stand alones for years is what led me to what I have. Slow its not, in fact I'm not too far off the SS cycle times at 4 secs. compared to 11 secs for the typical stand alone. And that cycle time goes way up if your in tough wood where as my unit is always cycling the same regardless of tough wood. We have done split tests comparing the tractor against a 22ton Speeco in the same pile. With 2 guys running the Speeco and just me on the tractor I can split 4xs the wood in the same time. That 2nd stage really slows you down more than you realize if the wood is tough. If it even has to be there for a couple secs each stroke it turns into minutes real fast.
Hour meter ticking away, not a problem, with all the wood I split last year and using the tractor for just about everything I only put on 250hrs. Remember if the meter is in the tach is actually tach time which runs slower than actual when your rpms are below rated PTO. And those diesels can go 9000+ hrs. I'll never get there.
But the other reason I like the tractor is its free to operate fuel wise. I run only sumped jet fuel. So for all that power and speed and convenience it practically free.

 

[jdemaris]

It has a four inch cylinder and it really struggles to bust any of the oaks or hickory. I had to hand split a bunch so they were smaller and lighter to get on the splitter, but why do that if you have a real splitter? Also, no table which it really needs. The wedge is solid and the piston pushes the log so it often sticks and I need the sledge to unstick it. So I guess I need to buy a splitter. Do they come with five inch cylinders or tables? What brand name should I be looking for? Tell me what I need. David

I've got an Amercian three-point splitter with a 4" cylinder. I use a Prince PTO pump since using tractor hydrauics is usually a big waste of fuel. My pump is set at 2000 PSI and I can split just a about anything. Sometimes a piece of curly-hard-maple stump or pignut hickory with get stuck, but that's rare. Being veritcal, this thing is easy to use. A lot of my wood is 3 feet diameter, so I could never lift the stuff onto a horizontal splitter. Another big asset to the this thing is - I drive right up to a downed tree if the wood is too heavy to move.

Since your's has the same PSI and cylinder diameter - sounds like maybe it has a poorly designed wedge?

4" with 2000 PSI yields 12 1/2 tons of force -but a wedge with poor taper will need more force to split than one with a narrow taper.

Adding a 5"cylinder would bring the force up to 19 1/2 tons - around the same force a 4' cylinder can make when hooked to a two-stage pump.

My splitter is designed to handle a 5" cylinder if desired. I've just never needed it bad enough to swap. On the rare event when a hard piece of stump-wood gets stuck - I just wack it with another piece of wood and run it again. I just about always splits the second try.

 

[wkpoor]

Something else that has not been talked about yet for the tractor splitter is even though it has only one stage, in my side beside tests using exact the same beam assembly, the tractor powered unit outperformed the standalone in less times a piece stopped the ram. My explanation for this is 4xs the speed and 2000psi instantly available overrides the standalone's 2nd stages 500 more psi. I nearly never have a piece it doesn't sale through and the standalone with exact same beam assembly will frequently get stopped in a pile of knarly crotches or Elm. First stage on most standalones is only about 500psi. Yes adequate for most pieces but if a tough one is encountered there will be a brief pause before it shuttles and then the ram will move at a snails pace. It seems more efficient to keep the ram moving at same rate with more first stage pressure. However it all comes at a price, power from the pump that required power from a bigger engine.