peteholmesseattle@gmail.com

Pete holmes iI would love to get a copy of those manuals if your willing to send them to me. Oncewaslost1982@gmail.com

Glad to see some recent activity in here! I inherited a Roto Hoe 500 from my great grandpa and am in the process of restoring. It‘s been hard to find info online, but I’m making progress. I had to buy a new motor but am still missing belts, and an engine pulley. I guess Im going to purchase a dual pulley, but I can see that the tensioner only disengages the shredder and not the chipper since they spin independently. At least that Is my understanding. Am I correct on all this? if so, I am going to proceed with purchasing the dual engine pulley.

On my 500 the chipper and the hammer flails only run off one belt, on mine the original engine drive pulley is a single. raross61@earthlink.net Bob in Oregon

On the 500 has anyone ever came up wit a source for the hammer knives in the shredder assembly?

I picked up a used model 550 recently that my intent is to dismantle and sell for parts. Is there anything anyone needs in particular? I've got to give it a going over and check engine function etc. I would prefer for the entire unit to go to someone. Located in North Carolina.

I picked up a Roto-Hoe 500 from a Craigslist ad. The seller bought it not running and tried to fix it. Really what he dwas disassemble it needlessly. The recoil was completely apart including the spring. He said he wanted to see how it worke. Anyway for $20 in parts I have it running great.

jeff Foster do you have a belt gaurd available? The one i have didn't come with a guard.

Jim Trygg

I have a 501 Roto Hoe that I acquired about 35 years ago. I used it for a couple of years then put it in storage because of a pending move. Now I plan to resurrect it by installing a new engine, a 250 cc Briggs and Stratton XR Professional 7.0. The 501 differs from the 500 by having two wheels instead of a skid in the back. About a year ago Pete Holmes posted an offered to send a digital copy of his 500 manual. If that offer is still available, I would appreciate receiving a copy too. My email address is jtrygg@comcast.net.

My idler pulley mechanism has two positions for the pulley. A disengaged position where the belt is slack for starting the engine and an engaged position where the pully is allowed to fall, under its own weight against the belt. The is no sign of a spring or anything else to force the pulley to take up belt slack. Is this the way it is supposed to be? I read the post of 14 years ago by “streinlkov” where he describes how his dad modified the belt tensioning mechanism. Does anyone have any details on this that they can share? Thanks. Jim

Will do, Jim. Your "clutch" arrangement sounds like mine, which has been very reliable. I'll send the manual now, try to get a picture of my configuration to send in the next day or two. Good luck! -Pete

Thanks very much Pete. Jim

Check here for the manual

I did a search on

"Roto-Hoe Cut'n Shred Shredder Model 800 Serial 13186"

and found the manual for this shredder.

However I could not find a clean URL to access it directly.

Jim,

The mods my dad made were to his (now mine) 990-5. That is a different model than your 501. I can send you pics of the mods my dad made if you want.

Yes. Pictures of the mods your dad made to the 990-5 would be great. Please send them to jtrygg@comcast.net.

Thanks, Jim

I'm planning to get it out and use it to till my garden sometime this weekend. I am working at my job today and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so it probably won't be Sunday until I can take pics and send to you.

@strelnikov I would love those pics too. Is there a PM system here? I hate putting my email up like that in the open. I used to have a gardenweb login but haven't posted here since it changed to "whose". Or "house", or whatever.

@Jim Trygg I think you are missing the spring for your idler. I took pics of my "new" 500 the other day. I'll try to post it. Or email it to you. I have a digital copy of a manual, as well as the original manual that came with this 500.

Hey all,

I just picked up a 500 this week. I have a bigger hammermill already (kemp) but it is a beast to transport; I wanted something I could roll onto a hitch hauler to transport for garden cleanups.

This 500 is a briggs 5hp, and the engine runs, so far. I did not engage the belt yet. The condition of the shredder is sort of beat up. Belt and pulleys are all intact. It has a 3/4" grind plate but the back welds are busted off and the first slat is missing. The plate was hanging down vertically. I'm thinking from the parts list, that first slat was tack welded to the rear of the plate.

The bearings seem okay. I'm not sure if I should try to grease them, or how. It has three knives on the drum that stick out unsupported, so I don't know how well that could really work. The gap between knives and the block looks too large on two of them, and way too large on the third. There are clearance holes through the side to access and remove the knives to sharpen, but I haven't had a chance. Seems to me it would cut better with just one knife installed; I may be biased by using the kemp for 5 years.

I'm not seeing how the stock 3/4" screen with slats behind would do much shredding. I like the idea above of making a removable full length screen out of expanded metal. I don't have any such material, though. Should it be a certain grade or size? Expanded metal, to me, is the stuff on ladder stands and grills and such. I'd love to see pics of that mod above.

I love the idea of running carp through this 500 with slats removed...this little thing would be so easy to clean out compared to the big kemp. I would have to make a new chipper chute though, because this 500's chute has an angled plate forming a funnel near the bottom, to limit diameter and direct the material toward the cutting block. The remaining clearance is too small for even a 3-4 lb carp.

I have more to yap but got to go and I'll get back at this later. Happy shredding all.

Is there a place on this site where I could post the pics with explanations of what my dad did? This old 1979 990-5 is a beast of a tiller. The 3rd 8 HP Tecumseh on it died shortly after my dad died and I inherited it. I replaced the last Tecumseh with a Briggs 10 HP InTek engine that works great. My dad was a really good welder (and worked for a number of years as one professionally), so I don't know if the average guy would be able to make the mods he did.

Here are pics of the belt layout on this 500.

I haven't engaged the belt yet, so can't say how well it works. I need to clean up the rust on the pulleys first. My kemp is a much heavier system with dual pulleys, a centrifugal clutch, and the drum weighs somewhere around 75 lb.

On a windows PC I can upload pics directly from PC like above (Photo link, below the comment box). I do generally resize pics I post to 800x600 with an old photoshop program before uploading.

I still haven't looked up this multi use 990 machine you have. It sounds a bit more complicated than the little 500 I picked up. Sounds like your dad was a good engineer.

@Bob Elliott, I don't have a belt guard on mine. My setup looks similar to @Jay User's setup in the photos he posted on 4/23/21.

There is a belt guard on my 500. I don't plan to sell it, but if you need a pic I can post one up. The color is the lighter green, like pea green, same as its back plate on the right. I have to think this machine is all original part setup and paint scheme, just abused and let go.

Any pictures you are willing to post will help. Thank you

Jay User, you are correct, I do have a spring that I didn’t notice. It was broken and just dangling there hidden behind the idler pulley. I didn’t look hard enough. Anyway, I installed a new spring. My drive belt set up looks exactly like yours. Thanks for posting the pictures. I still don’t have the engine mounting holes drilled so I have a ways to go to try it out.

This pic of the 990-5 shows the 10 horse Briggs, the piece of railroad rail my dad made, and the idler pulley with grease fitting.

This pic shows the mod my dad made to keep the tiller belt from loosening and slipping during operation.

This pic shows the mod my dad made to keep the main drive mechanism from loosening and slipping during operation.

The turnbuckle works really well to get the belt tightness just right during operation.

The 10 HP Briggs InTek has plenty of power for this machine. I got it from Small Engine Warehouse, and I also got the engine adaptor plate from them. The 8 HP Tecumseh has a different mounting bolt pattern than the Briggs, but the Briggs works so much better than the Tecumseh did.

A closer shot of the starboard side. I removed the throttle cable because the Briggs runs only WOT.

Dad put this piece of chain and curved bolt to hold on the front attachments and piece of railroad rail because the slots in the front of the frame wore oval over time.

Close-up of the port side with the idler pulley, which came from Grainger. It works a lot better and is much heavier duty than the original idler pulley with the bronze bearing.

Another pic of the starboard side.

Thanks for posting those pics. That is quite a machine, with the dual outputs. It gives me some insight for working on my kemp.

The kemp originally had a cent. clutch, dual pulleys, and an 8hp kohler magnum. It currently has a 6.5 predator and a smaller diameter dual pulley with no clutch system. Usually I just run one pulley so it can slip if needed, but it keeps much better power with both pulleys. For a couple years I was trying to figure a simple idler/tension spring arrangement to take the load off for starting the engine. Something like what the roto hoe 500 has. These pics will help with that.

I like the honda clone 6.5 predator because it is much quieter and smoother than the kohler ever was, but I couldn't get the cent .clutch off the kohler when I made the swap. Too bad they are not $99 anymore...it was one thing I liked about free trade with red China.

Two years back or so, I remembered the clutch stuck on the kohler and tried to pull it. Lo and behold, after all that time it practically fell off! So now I'm torn between putting the original cent. clutch/pulley back on (I have a 3/4 to 1" adapter for the shaft), or putting an idler/tension spring as I originally considered. Honestly the cent. clutch never impressed me. I think it was the weak link in the system. At one point it broke, one of the three springs inside snapped. No way I was spending $140 for a replacement. I happened to find 3 similar springs at an old stock mower store, and was able to fix it. It seemed to work, but as well as the original, I don't know. Soon after on a hot day, the kohler 8hp magnum engine wiring smoked.

So anyway, those pics should help with ideas. I think the kemp has plenty of power as is with the 6.5 and the smaller drive pulley, when both belts are used. But it can hard to start under that load. I run it full throttle now. With the kohler engine I would often run it at 3/4 throttle because full throttle was too loud and vibratory, and some material shredded better with the lower drum rpm.

@Bob Elliott I will take pics of that belt cover when I get a chance.

@Bob Elliott

I took some pics of the 500 belt guard. It is supposed to be a two piece unit, but on the last pics I realized the bottom hold down tab on the inner guard is broken and would need to be welded.

I can post them here I guess or email them to you. It is around 2 dozen pics, to be somewhat comprehensive in case you are going to fab one.

Hello - happy there is some interest in Roto-Hoe's -- Picked up a 500 yesterday and am having problems removing the three shredder knives that attach to the rotating drum (reel). There are two bolts holding each knife - one of which (the one closest to the axle) that match the hole in the side of the enclosure - easy to extract this one. The second bolt does not have a matching hole for extraction and I see no way to pull it out. I'll add that for all three knives, both bolt heads are inserted from the enclosure side, and the nut is attached from the cutting reel side.

I've looked over the schematic in the PDF of the Roto-Hoe Repair Parts Instruction Manual, but don't see details on removal or specifics on the bolt orientation. I was wondering, could it be that the upper bolt should be inserted opposite the lower bolt? Meaning that the head of the upper bolt should go through the reel toward the outer enclosure? I'm at the point where it looks to me like drilling a second hole through the outer enclosure to match the upper bolt location would be a practical approach as I don't fancy pulling out the entire reel to access the upper bolt.

Any suggestions welcome - maybe I'm missing something obvious!

Bill

I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure my 500 has two holes, one for each bolt, indexed at different spots.

One at 4 o'clock one at 10 o'clock. It would be hard to miss though, only a few inches apart, so I suppose you'll have to cut a hole there.

Hello Jay and for your reply - yes, I lack that 4 o'clock second hole - and will attempt to drill a hole to match your example - any idea of the distance from the shaft centerline to the center of your 4 o'clock?

Bill

Greetings all - further status on my maintenance. Removing the shaft that goes through the reel went easier than I feared! Remove the shaft bearing covers and the tapered wheel bearings from the non-driven side. On the driven side with the pulley wheel, the pulley was reluctant to come off, so I removed the driven-side bearing cap. Then removed the bolt inside the housing that goes through the reel and the shaft, and the shaft pulled right out. Plan is now to put another hole in the housing at the 4:00 o'clock position (per Jay's photo) and put it back together.

Bill

I will measure tomorrow if I remember, if I don't not bump it again. I don't know if we can PM on this site or not?

LOL that is odd to see, only one hole. I could understand zero holes, or two holes, but one?

Does anyone have a count on how many of these were produced, and for how many years?

Does any one know the bearing part numbers for the chipper shredder 500 I have tried to have the original part number cross referenced with no luck.!

Not sure if you ever got an answer but mine has Timken LM11949 taper roller bearings

Hi I also have a chipper shredder 500, I was wondering if anyone has found a source for the flail knives for the main grinder rotor, (Not the knife for the branch chipper chute)?

Thanks Bob in Oregon

Depending on how worn they are you can use them 4 times by first rotating them to put a square corner as the leading edge then by inverting them to put the worn end on the axle. other than that i think were now down to getting a shop to make them out of standard strip and hardening them.

HHerHereHere isHere is aHere is a picture ofHere is a picture of my Roto-Hoe cut’n shred shredder model 800. what is this machine used for trees, corn, etc just currious II neverI never seenI never seen oneI never seen one before

Sounds like a good deal to me. I have a 500 that's at least a quarter century old, still works great. I've sent several restorers pdfs of my original literature; I'm gonna see if I can post it here somehow.

Well, here's a single page. I'll keep trying, but message me with an email address and I'll send you my factory literature for the 500/800/2000 series...

I have a 500 shredder that runs and everything is there except the knives or blades i am a machinest and can make them but i dont have the dimensions or diagram of the blade assembly

any info would be greatly appreciated .

thanks gmaddle68@gmail.com

Hi Gmaddle, I can help with dims. Email me at Mannyberber@gmail.com or dm on facebook Manny_Berb

Just found this site. I have re-built (including total tear downs) multiple 500's over the past 20+ years. Most of the repairs are easy, a few are difficult-i.e. removing the axle. The main problem is not greasing the bearings. They need to be be greased often ( 10 to hrs). They are 2 piece and are readily available. (and cheap). Lack of grease allows lots of dirt in and ruins the bearings. Believe it or not, the race is replaceable. It takes about 30 min. Warning- if you want to remove the bearing housing (3 bolts), stuff cardboard inside the unit to keep the those nuts in place. The two rear bolts can easily be replaced if they fall out. The lower front bolts are extremely difficult to it impossible to put back in to place (without the unit apart). The other problem is rust. Anti-seize is your friend. To remove the drive pulley, usually requires a small 3-jaw puller (and buying needle points for it and drilling 3 shallow holes in the side of the pulley) A hint- use sand paper and smooth the base and sides of the inlet chute smooth. Then paint it and put auto wax on it. This really improves the feed rate. Will post more later.

I have accumulated lots of spare parts. If you need any, let me know. Sandy

goof corrections - the cardboard is used to hold the bolt heads in place, not the nuts. There are thick felt washers/seals in the bearing housing. They are commonly damaged or missing (torn up). Buy a sheet of felt on ebay and cut to size, There are also four metal washers. When you take off the bearing housing, do it slowly. DIAGRAM the order of the parts so you can put it back together correctly.

What is the differance between 300,500,800.

not sure which i have. it has a 5hp briggs engine on it

SERIAL NO. 227051. may maybe 500, can i just change the engine to a larger hp. how do i grease the bearings in it. any chance someone has a manual for it

kcaustin66@gmail.com. thanks in advance