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| At this stage, it was a beautifully painted boat anchor. |
“Man, all
these willows along the road that need to be cleared… they would make great
mulch,” I began anew the conversation we had been having since May when we
ordered our DR Power Equipment chipper/shredder.
“Yeah,
would work great at the potato farm, playground, around our house,” Myra
continued.
It was a
well-worn mental path that we continued walking down into late July when Craig
Taylor equipment contacted us to let us know that the chipper they had promised
us two months ago was finally ready to ship to us.
“Just leave
it crated,” I reminded them, “it’ll ship easier, and since it has never been
fired up, we will avoid the hazmat charge when it gets air freighted.”
“That is
the plan,” the salesman assured me. “I’ll
get it dropped off to Alaska Airlines tomorrow.”
Tomorrow
came, and Alaska Airlines called me. “Before
we can proceed,” the cargo representative informed me, “we need to receive
payment for the hazmat fee.”
“It is
brand new, in the crate, and never fired up,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,
probably has fuel residue in it though and that makes it hazmat. It’s a $120 fee.”
I mumbled
to myself as I dug for my wallet.
“And, since
we don’t ship directly to Unalakleet, I’ll need to receive payment for transferring
it to another carrier in Nome when it gets there,” she continued.
“But, you guys
do directly ship here.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Okay, but
I saw a plane at the runway today that said Alaska Air Cargo on it. It is still parked out there. I can send you a picture if you want,” I said
without being sarcastic (that is a difficult thing for me to do in cases like
this).
“No sir,
according to my computer, we don’t service Unalakleet,” she insisted.
“Well,
according to Chuck Williams (name changed to protect the innocent) who came and
did the training of the Ryan Air employees, you do service us directly,” I insisted
back.
“Oh,”
recognition of the name evident in her voice, “I’ll have to call you back.”
Fifteen
minutes later, I received another phone call from Alaska Air Cargo looking for
payment to ship the chipper/shredder directly to Unalakleet, “We do ship to
Unalakleet,” the woman informed me.
Another two
days, and we received the long-awaited phone call from Ryan Air letting us know
the anticipated freight had arrived.
Myra and I danced around the living room like two kids on Christmas
morning as Ellen stared wondering what kind of mental breakdown her parents
were going through.
“You are
going to want another guy or two to move it to the job site,” Myra recommended.
“We’ll see,”
I said absentmindedly smiling as I dreamed of feeding the huge piles of willow
brush through the machine.
Ryan Air forked
the crate onto a borrowed trailer and I drove it out to our building site. Upon removing the crating, assembly was
pretty self-evident. Two long bolts to
put the feeding shoot onto the shredder and a spark arrester that easily
screwed on to the muffler.
The machine
weighs a little over 200 pounds, and so I did an interesting dance down a ramp
I had temporarily erected from 2x10 header material. My 42-year-old body was happy that the boards
only bent and did not snap as I bounced down the ramp, dragged behind the
chipper.
Not heeding
my wife’s advice, I had gone out to the build site by myself. For some reason I thought the wheels on the chipper
would be larger than the toy wagon wheels it came equipped with. The pull handles on a DR chipper/shredder are
just slots cut into the feeder shoot.
They are far from comfortable, but I had gotten the machine this far and
wanted to try it out later that day. Two
months was a long time to wait to hear it run.
“How hard
could it be to drag it across fifteen yards of tundra and another fifteen yards
of uneven, willow stump strewn ground?” the stubborn voice in my head piped
up. And as if I needed further
encouragement, “Weren’t you a college athlete once?”
Twenty
minutes later, and it was my own voice giving the machine I was dragging “words
of encouragement.”
“The next
time I move this stupid thing, our driveway will have been put in,” I said to
nobody in particular while wiping sweat from my forehead.
I hobbled
back through the stumps, tripped over the tussocks, and climbed back into the
car. I knew Myra would want to be with
me for the first time the machine ran and needed to pick up oil since it was a
new machine that had never been started.
It had been shipped without oil.
We ate dinner,
smiling the whole time about how much work we were about to get done. Two twenty-foot long piles standing over six
feet tall and another six foot at the base stood waiting for us. I could see them start to quake in fear as I
dragged the machine into place earlier.
I grabbed a
full quart of oil and another partial since the book said nowhere how much oil
the engine should have. It was a small
little Briggs and Stratton motor, and I would be surprised if it took more than
the partial quart, but I didn’t want to have to drive all the way back to the
house for more.
When we got
to the chipper, I took out the dipstick, saw the oil reservoir was empty, added
oil, and replaced the dipstick. The plan
was to allow the oil to run in and settle in order to get a true level
reading. In the meantime, I filled the
gas tank.
The
dipstick (the one in the machine not the one adding the oil) still showed low
oil and so I added again. I began
pulling the warning stickers from the machine.
“Do not run
engine without oil,” was printed on one blocking the choke. “Add oil before initial running,” was printed
on a tag connected to the recoil rope.
I took one
more look at the owner’s manual and was greeted by, “Check oil before running,”
on the very first page.
I pulled
the dipstick and saw the oil level was at that hashmarks, replaced the
dipstick, adjusted the choke and throttle, turned the fuel valve to on, and
pulled on the cord.
“Ooofda,” I
said looking at Myra, “this thing has some compression.”
Four more difficult
pulls and the motor sputtered to life. I
worked it through the choke and throttle settings until it was puttering at a
strong idle and excitedly reached for the first small willow branch in the
pile. I smiled as I saw the branch
consumed and turned to beautiful chips, turned to grab another branch and listened
to the engine bog down and die.
“What
happened?” Myra asked.
“Must have
gotten that willow jammed in the chipper,” I said as I tried the recoil again.
It wouldn’t
budge. It was stuck solid. Because I didn’t want to be known as nubby or
have people feel awkward when asking if I needed a hand, I removed the spark
plug wire from the plug before beginning work on the chipper mechanism.
The willow
had gotten jammed in the flywheel and pulling a couple of bolts allowed access
to a screen covering the works. I pulled
what I could reach that way, and attempted to manually turn the fly wheel. It made a terrible screeching noise
indicating that a willow was still stuck somewhere in the flywheel up against
the housing.
Two more
bolts, and the feed shoot was removed so that I could reach down through the
top of the chipper. This was not the
first time in my life that I wondered if being a contortionist might have been
a wise and applicable job skill to have acquired at an earlier age. I also wondered if this was normal practice
after each branch. The videos of this
machine that Myra and I had drooled over while shopping for it showed none of
this laborious process.
The pencil
size stick that had gummed up the works pulled free, the flywheel was able to
spin again, and I put everything back together including pushing the spark plug
wire back onto the plug.
“Huh,” I commented
while pulling, “the cord still won’t budge.”
“I’ll look
for the trouble shooting guide,” Myra said as she tried convincing Ellen to
surrender the book the little girl had begun running around us in circles with.
Ellen giggled
in recognition of the new game.
A trade agreement
was reached, and Ellen walked away with the warranty information guide.
“Jammed
recoil… remove any material that may be jammed in the flywheel… well, that’s
done,” Myra scanned further down the list.
“Pull spark plug and pull recoil rope.
Oil or fuel may have filled the cylinder and blocked the piston.”
On the DR
Chipper Pro 400, the spark plug has been strategically placed under a muffler
cage. I could only guess this was done
to keep thieves from walking off with the valuable plug. It was a sufficient deterrent as I struggled
to get the spark plug socket past the cage and onto the spark plug. I mumbled encouragement to the socket as I
wriggled it into place. Ten minutes later,
and the plug and all of the tools used to remove it were free.
“Huh,” I commented
as the recoil again wouldn’t budge.
Myra
scanned further, “Check oil, engine seized.”
“Really, it
jumps to that?” I asked with disappointment evident in my voice.
I pulled
the plug wire again just to assure that this boat anchor engine wouldn’t jump
back to life, and then began digging for the right socket to remove the drive
belt cover.
“If it is
just a jammed recoil, the pulley on the back of the motor should still turn,” I
reasoned aloud.
It did not.
“Well, I
guess we call tomorrow when Craig Taylor is open again,” Myra suggested.
We all
walked back to the car. I walked back
defeated.
“Yeah, that
sounds like something that should be covered by the warranty,” the salesman at
Craig Taylor said. “I’ll start reaching
out to DR, but they are usually more receptive hearing right from the
customer. You should probably give them
a call. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll
communicate with them too, but they’ll answer you quicker,” he went on.
DR’s
customer service has some great bluegrass for hold music. This was a real plus as I waited an hour for
anyone to pick up. I am prone to exaggeration,
but in a world in which cell phones have timers on them for how long a call
lasts… this is not an exaggeration.
“DR Power
equipment, how can I help you?” a friendly voice broke through the bluegrass.
I went
through my spiel and everything I tried.
“Did you
pull the plug and then pull the recoil?” the kind lady asked.
Thankfully my
eye rolling is not as loud as a teenager’s and was not audible on the phone, “yes,
that was second thing I did. I am
thinking it is seized and that I got a dud.”
“Okay,
well, just bring it to the dealer, and we’ll get it checked out for you.”
“Mam, I
live in rural Alaska. We don’t have a
dealer. The machine got here by
air. It will cost me as much as the
machine to send it back and then get it sent back here after it is checked out. I’m the mechanic you’ll be working with,” I
said calmly.
“Well, in
that case, go out and take the drive belt off.
It might be binding and keeping the motor from turning over.”
“If that
doesn’t work, what should I do?” I asked to get the next step ready.
“Call us
back.”
I waited
for Myra to be done with work for the day so that I could go out and try the
next problem-solving approach as supplied by tech support. The drive belt cover was already off from the
day before. The drive belt itself was
under considerable tension, but loosening the motor mount bolts allowed me to
then work the bolt that adjusts motor placement and belt tension. The belt came off and I pulled on the recoil. Still stuck.
I grabbed a hold of the drive pulley and tried to manually turn it… didn’t
budge.
“It’s seized,”
I shook my head looking at Myra.
The next
day I called back for my one-hour bluegrass session… “take the recoil off and
see if it is jammed…”
I did, it
wasn’t.
“Yeah,” the
tech said the next day after I waited through another hour of the same
bluegrass song on repeat, “sounds seized.”
“So now
what?” I asked.
“Well, in
order to be covered by warranty,” I was told, “we would have to have a shop
look at it and determine what caused the engine failure…”
This was sounding more and
more like a large company escaping responsibility.
“And so?” I
asked during the pause.
“Well, I
can offer you a discounted motor for $300 plus shipping,” I was told.
My blood
pressure went up. I had seen a motor on
Amazon for $350 with free prime shipping.
“Mam, you drive
a brand-new Ford off the lot and the engine blows up on you, how much are you
paying for the new engine that goes in it?”
“I
understand sir, but…”
“So, how many days do I have
to return the machine to the dealer for a full refund?” I quickly asked.
“Excuse me?”
came the other end.
“How long
for a 100% refund?”
“Well…
thirty days… give me a minute, I’ll have to put you on short hold.”
More blue
grass.
“$150
is the best I can do, and shipping will cost $20,” she said.
“Not as good
as free, but better than $300,” I conceded.
“I’ll just
need your address so that I can tell the truck where to drop it off,” she
informed me.
After all
we had gone through in explaining rural Alaska, DR was still convinced they
could truck ship me the new motor.
“You’re not
truck shipping it,” I said calmly. “Put
it in a box and drop it off at the post office.”
“Well, we
don’t do that, we truck ship.”
“If we had roads,
I would have driven it to a service shop, drop it off at the post office.”
“I’ll have
to work on a quote for you...”
Three days
later and we still didn’t have a quote.
I got someone new when I called DR for my bluegrass session who told me
there was no note about a shipping quote on my account. He’d get back to me… when he did he told me
we were in luck since we received barge shipping in Unalakleet.
“You missed
the last barge. Next barge will get here
in June of next year, put it in a box and drop it off at the post office.”
“Well, I’m
not sure how much the motor weighs, it might be overweight…”
“Amazon
says 41 pounds,” I informed him.
“Oh, well,
that is within USPS limits…”
“Yup…”
“I’ll get
back with you in a couple days on a quote.”
In a couple
of days, he told me that he could ship it to Anchorage and that I’d have to
figure out the shipping from there.
“Ship it to
my folks in Michigan. They’ll put it in
a box and drop it off at the post office.”
He seemed
relieved and I told him how excited I was to start chipping with the machine
that looked really good… until he cut me off midsentence and said he really had
to get to his next call.
The motor
was dropped off to my parents’ house in a crate. My dad pulled it out and repackaged it,
dropped it off at the post office and had it to me in a week. Four bolts on the motor, a pulley puller to
pull the drive pulley, all back together, filled with oil, filled with gas,
double checked the oil, and the new motor fired up in one pull.
“Wow, that
sounds a lot better than the first one,” Myra commented. “That first motor wouldn’t pull over and
sounded terrible.”
We let it
idle for five minutes, and grinned as it began eating the willows we had
ordered it to deal with three months ago.
The DR
chipper shredder works like the pro it is labeled as. The Briggs motor happily spins the heavy
flywheel with ease eating through pretty much anything four inches or smaller
that it is fed. What I didn’t realize
was how much of a gamble it would be to work with a company like DR. I was originally happy to work with an American
company that used American made motors to power their equipment. It really is a well-built machine and functions
well… with an operable motor, but I don’t think I’ll be going with a DR Power
Equipment product anytime in the near future.
They just don’t stand by their products.
For some
reason, at the end of this whole adventure, I felt like I should be eating
Thanksgiving dinner with a shower curtain ring selling John Candy. I guess feeding willows to a machine that
finally runs will have to suffice.
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| It makes short work of our willows... just took three months to get started. |
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