Here is a picture of it.

top hopper

There isn't a hopper for the chipper.

This is the exit.

Well, that is a great deal. I'm not sure that it is completely fair, but members of this forum have generally rated the Mckissic to be the best chipper for moderate to serious use. They are plenty expensive. You can't beat free. It looks to be in very good shape. I also see that it is older than any of us have. It is certainly much older than mine, but it seems to have the same setup.

No one would ever have a hopper for limbs. You can put small limbs through the leaf hopper without problems if the engine is running well. It looks like it was probably under a tarp or something to look so good. One of our engine experts might suggest an approach to get that engine back in shape.

I have been watching videos on these machines and it has me pumped to get it. It sounds like it's well liked. I found one mounted to a Simplicity too. They made a clutch for it. I don't know why it couldn't be hook right up to the power take off and turned on and off like the mower deck or snow thrower? I think this weekend I'll take it all apart. Check the motor out. If the motor worth my time or not. From what I have been reading 5 hp isn't enough for it anyway. If It looks like it's worth painting I'll paint it simplicity colors. Maybe get some new stickers if they have them. My neighbor wants it gone. He tried to sell it and now he just wants it out of his yard. I'm getting it tomorrow. To boot he gave me a bunch of vegetables from his garden and gave me free reign over it. He said it will all just end up in the compost because he can't keep up with the growth! I give him home brews too. He likes my beer.

Well I worked on it for about an hour last night. I removed the gas tank carb and cleaned that system. I was surprised to see that the oil looked new like it was changed and never run. After taking everything apart and cleaning and putting a new fuel line on she fired right up. The carb was dry and didn't have any gum. The gas tank was nasty! The glass ball below it was gummed up too. The fuel line was brittle. The air filter was falling apart in my hands. It was a foam filter that fell apart like a cake with no eggs in it! I lubed the bearings on the chipper shaft. I threw a couple branches and vines in the shredder and it swallowed it fast then spit it out. The chipper is dull I will have to sharpen that. I tried a dry three inch branch of oak and it didn't want it! I think it's missing a spring on the governor or throttle linkage. That moves back and forth causing it to surge just a bit up and down. I want to put rubber between the gas tank and mount. That vibrates and will wear a hole in no time. Right now it seems like the five hp is enough but I haven't run any serious stuff threw the shredder. I have to help a friend out of town tomorrow, but I'll tinker more on Sunday with it.

Since you don't have instructions: be sure that you are wearing gloves if you feed small branches into the hopper. It will yank them right through your hands and lube the hammers with blood. McKissic is still in business and answers questions and probably has a manual to sell you. I have not attempted a blade sharpen, but I believe that they recommend heating the set screws to aid removal and then retightening them with a particular loctite. My point is that it seemed like a pain to do and it probably needs to be done precisely.

I emailed them and asked if I could get a manual. I also sent a picture of the machine and asked if they still make the stickers for it because I want to paint it. I don't really like changing their company color, but I would rather make it match my lawn mower, so I'm thinking simplicity color scheme on a wagon. That way I can toe it like the new ones. Thanks for letting me know the blade is Loctite in. I have torches and it will melt the plastic in the threads. If sharpening doesn't work well I guess I'll have to buy a new blade. I'm thinking of making a smaller screen for it too so I can make potting soil. I have lots of good rotted horse manure to run threw it. Yes gloves sounds good to me! I put on safety glasses too after the first branch went threw. It spits stuff upward too! It doesn't have a full guard on top. I think it's missing the rubber fingers. It's also missing the door at the exit with the three settings to aim the discharge.

As I said, the setup 'appears' to be the same and I would expect that they still sell the screens in various sizes. I was/am too lazy to find my manual, but please follow the directions for removing and replacing the blade (when you get them) rather than relying on my questionable memory. Since you seem to be well equipped, I'm sure that you could resharpen the blade. I would guess that they sell the back directional guard too, although that should be much easier to make. OTOH, from my experience, it probably isn't really needed. I should probably just remove mine because I just keep it full open anyway.

I have a later 9hp version, and I bought a blade replacement kit, which consists of a new tool steel blade (not just anything will sharpen that) mounting bolts and a small tube of Loctite. The Loctite is the high temperature kind, and I was unable to loosen it with my Propane torch. I had to use a MAPP torch to get the bolts hot enough to get loose.

Wear thick insulated gloves when feeding a limb to the chipper, because the impact of the blade on the limb sends powerful vibrations into the limb. You need ear protection and eye protection. I use my chainsaw helmet when using mine, because it provides both. Check with MacKissic to see if they still have interchangeable screens for it. I use a 1/4-inch screen for fine composting, a 1/2-inch screen for garden path and mulching material, a 3/4-inch screen for re-processing compost piles, the standard 1-inch screen for faster chipping, and a special oblong holes screen for wet material. Or, for wet material, just remove the screen and just let the stuff go directly through. Wet material will clog a screen that has small holes.

It's good that you lubed the main bearing. That needs to be done every 10 hours of use. If the tires are pneumatic (from the picture it looks like they might be solid rubber) make sure they stay aired up. You need to keep your neighbor in beer for a long time. He just gave you about $1000 worth of equipment on today's prices.

ZM

PS When feeding material to the shredder chute, to be on the safe side, keep your elbows outside and below the rim of the chute, to make it impossible for your hands to get pulled in. Be aware that sometimes the hammers will "grab" what you are feeding in and jerk it suddenly in. To be on the safer side, just throw stuff into that chute and let gravity take over.

If you accidentally throw a rock or a piece of metal into the chute you will hear a scary loud clattering. Don't panic, just kill the engine and step back until everything stops. I once had a chamber load of stuff catch fire somehow. Same deal. Kill the engine and step back. When things cool down, you can always drop the screen to clean out the hammer-mill chamber.

This post was edited by zenman on Sat, Aug 23, 14 at 20:06

It is a dangerous piece of equipment. There is some wicked violence going on in there. I looked inside before I left this morning at the hammer shredder bars. They are rounded off on the hammer side. The machine must have been used more than he was telling me. I'll have to turn them around seeing they are reversible. I bought some sanding disks rust reformer and orange paint today while in my friends town. When I take it apart to sand and paint I'll switch the bars around. They have a Family Farm and Fleet store. I saw some nice pneumatic wheels there for $16. I could get those to make the wagon wheels for the front. The paint was $18 with the reformer. I haven't herd back from the e-mail I sent to Mackissick. I did give them my address and phone number. Maybe they will just send me a manual. I've read post where they have done that for other people.

They used to have a phone number and have human beings who know how to answer it. Call um.

Well Sunday I took the shredder all apart and reversed the bars. I started to take the blade off through the chipper hole thinking what a pain this will be. I should just cut a hole in the side. Then I noticed three holes and said ah ha! They wouldn't come out with a propane torch. I held the real torch on for ten seconds. The bolts came out like they weren't tight at all. I got that sharp. There is only one knife on the flywheel. Getting the big cotter pins of the bolts in the shredder was a pain too also putting new in ones. It's so rusted I decided I wasn't going to paint it. It starts on the first pull but I'm not impressed with its processing. The shredder works great on green stuff but dry stuff takes a while and I can only put a little branch in at a time. It will work good for making mulch. My corn scraps went threw and came out fine. I got an email back from Mackissick and she sent me a pdf of my 1975 12p. In that it says nothing over one inch in the chipper and only small branches trimmed in the shredder. This machine is more for someone in a sub or in town. I can more easily just burn my stuff. My brush piles get ten foot high and I would be for ever making chips! That's the other reason for not painting it. It's only going to be good for running garden scraps for compost.

AGAIN, I suggest that you speak with them directly. I wonder if in 1975, there may have been a vast price differential between a five and a nine or ten horse power engine. Perhaps they sold both setups and listed one inch branches for the five horse engine vs three inch branch for the 9/10 horse engine.

I can personally see why they went from nine to ten HP engines. My nine HP engine will sometimes bog down and even stall while shreding a long, fuller wad of branches that didn't seem to require the chipper. I would expect that you could put a 10 HP engine on it to make it run like a modern unit, but I would check with mckissic before investing the money.

While I see that this thread is 6 years old, on the possibility that you still have the shredder, I would like to add a few comments. My shredder came with an 8 horsepower Briggs and Stratton that I unfortunately ruined due to too much tension on the belt which caused the bearings to fail. That was in 2007 and the only replacement engine that I could make work was an 11 horsepower 256422 Briggs. Of course I had to enlarge the chassis slots to accommodate the larger engine and I had to buy a replacement centrifugal clutch pulley, but the chipper/shredder still does the job today. You have a gem and if you changed the engine to a larger model, your machine should be able to handle larger limbs. BTW, I bought my MerryMack for $1,350 new in 1999, 21 years ago. I also notice that in 2020 McKissic is using 11 HP engines and is charging just over $2,000 for the PT 12.

Hi jrjohns,

I bought my Mighty Mac many years after you bought yours. Mine still has its original 9hp Briggs&Stratton engine. A couple of the tires had to be replaced, as you can see in this photo (click on the photo to see a larger version of the photo.)

I had larger tires "on hand" so I used them to replace the bad 8-inch tires (and rims). That raised the discharge chute an inch or so, but I didn't mind that, and it made my Mighty Mac a little more stable when pulling it around. When I took this photo several years ago I had just cleared a weed-tree infested junk pile (where we rent a farm home) for use as my South Garden. A pile of weed tree chips is in the picture. I used them as path material in my North Garden.

I will probably do some minor maintenance on my Mighty Mac and use it again this Winter. (Grease the main bearing, take a look at the spark plug, and change the engine oil.) I have accumulated quite a brush pile near my North Garden from the many tree limbs that have fallen in recent years. Kansas is windy, and we get occasional 70-mile plus winds in our storms, which almost always bring down some more dead tree limbs. And I will pull some weed trees. My brush pile keeps growing.

ZM

Ling shot question…any idea model # of johnnys chipper? bought same one while works great need new air filter and need size the previous owner used wrong one

You have not mentioned it yet, but I believe this is the manual for your machine

SC703 (3 HP)and SC705 (5 HP) For Mini-Mac Shredder-

Appears to be a good manual

http://www.celticdistributors.com ›

https://www.mackissic.com/parts-list-and-schematics/

I bought a Cub Cadet 3" chipper shredder several years ago and consider it one of the better purchases I have made. I have mature trees on my 3/4 acre lot. The chipper shredder keeps the brush under control, and give me plenty of mulch for our gardens. I have had some fairly large trees come down, and while it can do nothing with the large limbs and trunks, it can make mulch of most of it.