Vertical shaft engines

Edelman lawn mowers did this very thing. They were beasts as well, like a walk behind bush hog/

 

Welp,,, I'm rejuvenating an old thread ,, finally about to be home for good , and am about to get on some of my projects.
I'm gonna start stripping them mowers and keep some parts.
So ,, since everything grown up and I've got plenty of brush trimming to do,, I'm going to get my little limb chipper going,, it supposed to chip about 3 inch stuff ,, but the motor wasn't in the best of shape,, and even worse now sitting for 8+ years .
It's got a 5 hp B&S ,, was looking to have this thing running ,,, tomorrow,,, does anyone have any experience with the Harbor Freight 6.5 Predator motor ? I looked at a few reviews and some aren't to good ,, I read a few that are breaking crank shafts, 2 and 3 times . Kinda getting scared to fork out the money for one if that's the case. Thinking I may just doctor up the old B&S . So , anyone know the best/cheapest place to get B&S parts . Probably need a carb and gas tank ,, im gonna put some cleaner in the tank and see if i can get the rust out . I know this chipper would have some stress on the crank trying to chip these limbs.

Anyway ,, I was going to go pick up a motor today,,and get on the project before I scatterbrained out and squirreled off on another project .

 

Probably OP4 is your man on durability as he goes thru several chi-com engines.

 

Yes sir ,, I was trying to find his Stump grinder build thread , but couldn't find it . Maybe he'll chime in shortly.

 

Direct drive wood chippers are for green sticks, wigs and leaves.
I highly recommend selling the DD one and getting a belt drive one. Shattering cranks on DD units is normal.

My main harbor freight motor is the 459cc.

Stump removal

 

chip up 3" limbs??? >>> you better have one heck of a heavy unit - even with soft woods that takes quite a whack - I would be making a pile and plan on doing something like a burn or a firewood giveaway ....

 

Yea ,, that 3" limb thing is usually just the manufacturers ploy at selling the thing. That's what it's rated at ,, but I believe it may be half of that , if lucky. It was one my Dad had when he passed ,, the bigger stuff I will burn in winter ,, the smaller stuff is what I'm looking to chip up ,, it's just a pain having to pile it up and wait for it to be dry enough to burn ,, and loading , hauling, and unloading, is just time consuming. It actually does save some time. I'm just going to go ahead and rebuild the Briggs motor . I've got a 10hp Briggs as well. They're all old projects and just happy to finally be able to get back to them .

 

Yeah I destroyed mine chipping 1 to 2 inch sticks. Need a belt drive.
The most dry stick my 6.5hp would handle was about 5/8 of an inch to 3/4 of an inch.
Edit: new Mexico kiln dried elm.

 

I ordered a new carburetor for the 5 hp motor ,, might be able to start putting it back together this weekend. The gas tank was rusted up pretty bad,, took some muratic acid and cleaned up a good bit of the rust ,, gonna hit it once more and then put it all back together and see if she'll fire up .