self propelled wood splitter

[mike_van]

This is one of the things I  thought up to make life a little easier - Lifting the tounge weight of the splitter & pushing or pulling it has never been fun, just moving it 10 or 20 ft.  isn't worth hooking it up on the tractor or truck.  So, I thought with the hydraulics already there, why not use them to move it. I had to buy a new hyd. valve [surplus center 80.00] and a wheel & tire [ebay 4.50] The rest of the stuff I had. Replaced my front jack with what you see, the hydraulic motor turns the wheel by a # 50 chain, the whole thing swivels, there's a removeable 1" square "tiller arm" to steer it. I bought a valve that detents both ways, fwd & rev., you can walk along side it and steer it as you need to. It's a slow walking speed, but I didn't plan on driving it to town.  The black grate deal I just added too, kind of a woodcatcher so you don't have to go chasing the other half of the chunk to resplit it. 

[bedway]

Im impressed, sure saves all that bending over!,,bedway

[beenthere]

Mike_van
That's a clever idea.
Wonderin why your pic is so out of focus? Pixel size and bytes seem to be at the max, but its hard to see much detail of the motor and assembly of your invention.

I have a 12" wheel that slips into the stand pipe, that has a tongue to pull around but the hydraulic motor is a good one. I think chaining a hyd motor to drive a rear wheel would get the hoses out of the way of falling split wood and big unsplit chunks (just my thoughts tho).

Here is a pic showing the front wheel, with the tongue forward of the splitter. The wheel assembly slips off for hooking to a ball and road travel.

[mike_van]

I know why the pictures fuzzy, I cut the "save as" down to far trying to get a larger photo -   This one might be better -
I thought about driving a rear wheel, but it was more work. The rears on mine are car hubs & spindles, 1975 Chevy Biscayne I think -   The front wheel on mine will still swing up & latch for trailering,  the two hydraulic 90's are swivel fittings, they'll go anywhere.  To not have to lift that tounge and push the thing again, probably add a few years to my back.       Should have thought of it 20 years ago -

[metalspinner]

Hmmmm...
I'm envisioning an hydraulic  logging arch - first lift the log, then drive it around.   Wish I had the know how like you guy's to pull it off.

[solodan]

mike_van  that is pretty cool.
I'm with you metalspinner, I have mentioned the self propelled arch before.
I have also thought about making the power head on the lucas self propelled, so I could just drive it into the truck. These buggy splitters are pretty cool too.

[woodbowl]

Mike, that is just too slick.      Now I know how to make a WMlt40  laterally mobile. No more log rolling.   

[isawlogs]

Oh boy    Olens on a mission now ... 

[rebocardo]

Mike, that is SO cool 

I had thought about doing that on my dual axle trailer with an electric motor instead to help park my trailer off pavement since the tongue weight is 250+ pounds. Then I figured any electric mtr short of a winch motor would not work.

Hydraulics ... I had not even thought of that! If I build a dump trailer you just know what I will do now