GA Groundcare

Agreed. We / I have dealt with many manufactures over the years in the Ag / Groundcare / Arb industry and never met one so helpful as GreenMech. Its a joy to be partnered and a main dealer for them.

How about that for free advice!!

We were a Jensen sub dealer from 2015 - 2017. This was our own demo unit which would also go out on hire to local customers we knew. We sold it in 2017 when we became a main GreenMech dealership. 540 upwards are good, robust products. Expensive chippers though. Manufacture built, exchange rate, imported by TH White, sold to a network of dealers and then sold to end users means too many hands touch the product.. We struggled to sell any as our net dealer buying price was higher than GreenMech & TimberWolf's retailing price to end users.

Having owned a A530L from new I would say that it’s the machine that lets the Jensen name down. In 200 hours mine had a cracked chassis, cracked infeed hopper, went through ignition barrels, no stress sensor and a throttle cable.

I don’t think they need to be. Doesn’t make business sense to invest in that much stock just to sell them off cheaply

Had better tell the ecu to wind some more boost in whilst you’re at it! ?

Same, cant say I know much about the engines specifically or why they're choosing Tier5 Doosan over Tier5 Kubota. I know a Tier5 45hp 8" road tow chipper will be in the region of 5k more at retail. The rail boys are just going to have to accept 8" tracked chippers are going up. I can't see how they'll carry large quantities of petrol to the worksite each day. Or whether NW will allow such activity. The problem I see coming with tier5 chippers running DPF is that they'll need to be run flat out all of the time to run hot enough to work correctly. Most road tow chippers will only be revved when the work arrives by the groundie, or a drag, chip, stop repeat method. Then there is DPF regenerations sat on / in the middle of wood chip!!

It depends on what engine stock chipper manufactures are / were carrying. If you had physical engine stock you could continue to build up until mid this year. But now with the virus that has been extended for 12 more months. But the extension is only any good if you already have engines sat in the factory. GreenMech have plenty of 45hp turbo diesel lumps left (they bought a lot of engines) so you can buy the Evo 165 with the bigger 45hp lump or the Arborist 200 with the same engine. Forst do not buy their engines directly from Kubota whereas GreenMech and TimberWolf do. Forst buy from Mitchell, an engine dealer, calling on engines when they need them. They are unable to buy in any more tier 3a engine stock to continue building chippers with "old school" engines. So their options are now all tier5. 25hp diesel, petrol or over 25hp with clean burn treatment. From what I have read recently Forst are looking to go to Doosan engines? TimberWolf are out of diesel engine stock I understand, Ben Burgess put a massive order into TimberWolf and bought all their TW230 34hp machines!! Other TW dealers are now trying to buy from them... Tonnage per hour is nothing to get hung up on. It is unregulated testing and obviously massively depends on wetness of material.

We had a job about 5 years ago on a A530 tracked where this happened. It was down a bank by a stream, blade went through the hydraulic tank. Recovery tools included a 4" fence stake, wheelbarrow, bucket of tools, oil sucker and some straps. We walked to the machine from the van, removed the flywheel on the bank lifting it out on our shoulders using the stake and straps, we then sucked the hydraulic oil down past the damaged tank, drove the machine out of its location at low revs and tracked it back to the van where the trailer was with the flywheel in the wheelbarrow. Once in the workshop we plated / welded up the hydraulic tank, replaced the damaged bearings, refitted the flywheel with new blades and the machine went on its way. Quite a fun job in some respects for us... Not so much for the paying customer.

We copper slip CS100, TW 125 & TW150 blade bolts. TW blades and GreenMech blades sit in a pocket / against a ledge so the load going through the retaining bolt is fairly low in reality.

They are M16 bolts, 10.9 grade (I think) Its the same setup as Jensen, the Forst blades look identical to a Jensen. Whether they actually fit I have not tried. We sharpen quite a few Jensen blades, never seen one crack though. Again the Jensen torque is 310nm. In the past I have torqued them to 250nm and even then it feels damn tight.

Just had a set of Forst ST6 blades in for sharpening...

Flywheel bearings on the way out. Rumbling at idle is often the first sign. You want to take the belts off and get a proper length lever bar down the side of the flywheel checking for any play.

Fair enough. The new Evo 165 models are as follows. EFI Petrol, 750kg, single piece heavy duty chassis, metal bonnet, 70kg flywheel, cable throttle. Kubota 25.5hp diesel, 950kg (approx) weight, heavy duty chassis with adjustable height drawbar, folding chute, 101kg flywheel, metal bonnet, electric throttle. Both have led lights, locking hitch, 3 year parts and labour warranty (unlimited hours), no stress, letterbox style horizontal feed rollers, "floating" stop bar. The feed roller box location has been moved from the conventional 6 o'clock around to 9 o'clock. This allows more time for the material to exit on its first counter clockwise pass and less recycling of chip around the drum. Quicker processing and quicker discharge resulting in ultimately quicker feeding of fresh material. 70kg flywheel on the petrol may sound on the face of it a bit light, but the Arb 130 /150 models weigh in around 50kg. The Arborist 130 (23hp Honda), Arborist 150p (37hp EFI) and Arborist 150 (25hp Kubota diesel) are all 750kg and all still available. I have a 2019 Arborist 150 with 250 hours coming in next month which boosts the old 34hp Kubota turbo diesel engine. It still has 18 months manufactures warranty and I can stick it through on GreenMech finance if required..

Towing with auto is a dream for sure. I had a D3 Commercial a few years ago and towing was effortless. I know i'm towing in the Defender Puma these days, it's like a work out.... But I also find it fun. It can be dangerous towing in a powerful smooth auto, the speeds you can be doing with 3T on the back without realising! It seems a bit backwards for them to bang on about being this cheap rugged 4x4, with beam axles, the answer to the true Defender owner blah blah blah yet only offer auto. For example a sheep farmer plodding around his livestock will want a 5/6 speed manual. He'll also stick with a jap pickup because of this? The Ineos will make a good tow vehicle. But then so does the Disco and new Defender... I have my eye on the 6 cylinder Defender 90 Commercial. That'll be a great truck for hauling chippers about.

The Evo 165 petrol is now a 750kg machine... Chris Murphy, are you restricted to 750kg?

Exactly, price is everything on this to make it successful. Why add a 8 speed complicated expensive box if your target market is apparently farmers / workers? Isn't the idea of it that it can be repaired in the out back and beyond with minimal specific tools?

We can do you a good price on a new one.

Being a GreenMech dealer, if this was a GreenMech and you had used genuine blades, bolts and a torque wrench (even using an uncalibrated torque wrench is a massive step to show you’re carrying the job out correctly) I would be opening a warranty job card and shovelling it through as warranty unless evidence was found during the repair of improper fitment or use. I don’t mean this reply as a “you should of bought a GreenMech” Professionally detail to the supplier what you’ve done prior to the fail and the fail itself. If it’s falling on death ears look to get an independent engineers report?

The M16 bolts are £2 something, nuts are 60p and nordlock washers about £1. Genuine new blades are £39.50. As the blade sits in its own pocket in a GM the bolt doesn’t really take any of the load. If it’s a machine we look after half the time we just replace the washers & locknuts so the nylock is fresh. If it’s a used machine / Part ex that we have never seen before we’ll always stick new bolts on.

Blade change including swapping for sharpening? I prefer a blade that seats itself rather than the full load going through the bolt.

Is it a Jensen or Forst? 300+nm does always seem very tight for a M16 bolt.

Lubricated threads and dry threads torqued to the same setting will give a different tightness. But not to the effect of snapping blades. If that’s correct they should 100% have a decal saying only torque dry, that commonly chosen method of lubricating threads shouldn’t carry a risk of killing someone / damaging the machine.

Just seen this thread. I will send a new inner filter free of charge if you're still using the old one? Got them in stock here.

Super easy to test your torque wrench. Put it in the vice, add a chosen weight, say 50 lb at 1 foot away from the drive, set it to 50 lbft and if it clicks, jobs a goodun.