Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
mitox have a parts supplier finder function on their website, have u taken it apart for a proper look inside yet? centrifugal clutches are pretty simple, a drum, a couple of shoes and a couple of springs to retract the shoes at idle - a very diy repair
i realise money might be the reason for going for mitox, but maybe it's time to look into getting a pro hedge trimmer?
there's a guy in eastbourne selling a mitox trimmer 221287276348 3 days to go and no bids at £20 - you might be better off bidding on that rather than fixing the one you have (assuming you like double sided blades that is)
best of luck with it
I have taken the clutch to bits and sanded the inside of the drum as this was very smooth. I think I need to replace the shoes so I will go to my local machinery guy and see if he can get me the bits. He is a Mitox dealer.
Cheers
Mitox are identicle to garden care and sanli tools - they are chinese made and have a tendancy to fail - myself having owened a gardencare strimmer which had a mitox end on. - They are clones of older early 2000's echo tools, with some modifications on top - generally I think they are OK tools - but they are really not up to regular pro work -
If you can get the bits cheap enough and repair yourself, go ahead - but if your talking anything more than £50 to get it moving again, your better spending £300 or so on a proffessional grade machine.
The inside of the clutch drum will have a polished appearance... this is perfectly normal and this will not be responsible for the clutch slipping. Provided the shoes still have linings on them, again, this will not be the problem and they too will have a polished appearance. Roughing up these items will not achieve anything as they will rapidly become polished again!! Does the engine stop when it gets jammed on small branches?...... if so, its nothing to do with the clutch... either the blades are very blunt or the engine is severely down on power... ie knackered!! I see Mitox say they are ideal for "homeowner" use..... they are roughly a third the price of an equivalent Stihl...........I'm afraid you're expecting more from a machine than it was designed for.
Ben Cox said:
I have been running Mitox kit along side of my so call professional kit, Sthil, Huqy, Honda etc every day for the last 3 years.......they have proven themselves against all the so called pro kit. As with all kit use within its capabilities, grease it every day its used and use good quality 2 stroke and they will serve you well. In fact I would say they are excellent value for money against the much more expensive kit. Easy and ready available parts at good prices, unlike sthil.
Does the engine rev as it should ? Does the the blades move freely at full revs and only jamming when you cut into the shrub or hedge. You say its jams on the smallest of branches, does it cut through thicker ones ?. Sounds like it could be the gap / tension of the blades that need a little adjustment.
The engine revs fine, and the blades run smoothly. I use GT85 spray on the blades on a regular basis and have just greased all the gears etc in the cutting head.
I have sharpened the blades but it still seems to get stuck on small (and large) branches. I will test it again, but it did seem to start having problems with the result being the branches were getting stuck between the blades (i.e like a sandwich, not square on). I will look at the gap again and see if that helps.
It is not that old and has not really done many hours, so I am a bit confused as to the cause really.
Thanks Geoff, I wont bother getting new shoes for it just yet then. Will see if I can find another solution first.
Geoff Norfolk said:
If material is being "sandwiched" between the blades, I'd certainly check that all the blade bolts are tight..... if its like Stihl however, then trying to tighten the bolts further will not achieve anything as they come to a stop (for want of a better word!) at exactly the point when there is minimal clearance between the blades when new..... as the blades wear, the bolts cannot be tightened further so you end up with a large clearance. You may be lucky and the blade nuts/bolts don't come up against a stop and you'll be able to take up the slack between the blades by tightening the nuts/bolts. If there is a significant gap between the blades that can't be adjusted out by tightening, they may well be worn. Make sure the blades are really sharp... angle grinders are great for this........blunt blades certainly contribute to prunings getting stuck between the blades.
just a quick question i've never sharpened a hedge cutter blade any advice, guidance & info ?
I use a very fine stone on a Dremel, quick and easy. A mate insists that a flat file is the only way to do it. A regular light sharpen makes a huge difference to the cut, and puts less strain on the machine.
Benjamin O'Neill said:
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next