I am rebuilding my splitter. The tongue weight was ~200 lbs and it was nearly impossible to move. The motor and pump were hanging off the back and the poorly designed hydraulic tank was always sloshing oil from the fill and vent hole. The pump was also pulling air in with the oil because of the low height of fluid above the intake fitting. This caused the splitter to jerk through the tougher pieces of wood because the air would compress and then build pressure and then pop through the wood a bit and lose pressure again until the air compressed.....over and over. Some of you will understand how this works.
I think I have it solved. I moved the axle forward about 2.5 feet and put the motor and pump on the side. I made my own tank form a 20 lb propane cylinder with a vortex design. The suction fitting comes off the tank at a tangent from the bottom edge of the tank. The return fitting goes back in on the other side and on the same tangent, but higher up on the tank, about 2/3 of the way up. This causes the fluid to spin inside the tank, acting like a centrifuge and driving any air bubbles to the center, where they will gather and exit the fluid. The hot returning fluid flows along the wall of the tank and gets cooled before mixing with the rest of the fluid, eliminating the need for an auxiliary cooler which would most likely get damaged anyway. Any debris in the fluid will gather at the center of the tank, where it can be drained out. The vortex action in the tank also acts to increase the head pressure by a small margin by continuously pushing the fluid into the suction fitting, also eliminating turbulence near the suction fitting, preventing air from entering the fluid in the first place. The tank is situated well above the pump to give maximum pressure to the inlet side of the pump, which was a flaw in the old design where the tank was next to the pump and was rectangular in shape, causing turbulence and a massive vortex near the suction fitting allowing air to enter the pump and mix with the fluid. Air in the fluid will insulate it and make it harder to cool as well as creating heat inside the pump.
I am shooting for ~20-40 lbs of tongue weight when done. Pics to follow.
I think I have it solved. I moved the axle forward about 2.5 feet and put the motor and pump on the side. I made my own tank form a 20 lb propane cylinder with a vortex design. The suction fitting comes off the tank at a tangent from the bottom edge of the tank. The return fitting goes back in on the other side and on the same tangent, but higher up on the tank, about 2/3 of the way up. This causes the fluid to spin inside the tank, acting like a centrifuge and driving any air bubbles to the center, where they will gather and exit the fluid. The hot returning fluid flows along the wall of the tank and gets cooled before mixing with the rest of the fluid, eliminating the need for an auxiliary cooler which would most likely get damaged anyway. Any debris in the fluid will gather at the center of the tank, where it can be drained out. The vortex action in the tank also acts to increase the head pressure by a small margin by continuously pushing the fluid into the suction fitting, also eliminating turbulence near the suction fitting, preventing air from entering the fluid in the first place. The tank is situated well above the pump to give maximum pressure to the inlet side of the pump, which was a flaw in the old design where the tank was next to the pump and was rectangular in shape, causing turbulence and a massive vortex near the suction fitting allowing air to enter the pump and mix with the fluid. Air in the fluid will insulate it and make it harder to cool as well as creating heat inside the pump.
I am shooting for ~20-40 lbs of tongue weight when done. Pics to follow.
![[Hearth.com] Working on the splitter](/talk/data/attachments/163/163381-03699c4b0c8f25d03744a14de61c6303.jpg?hash=4O7_Cs0cRA)
