GC2310 PTO noise

[thing181]

Well I was playing, 'er working, with my tractor this weekend and decided I should put the MMM back on and remove the BH. After I took the BH off I decided to take a look at the rear PTO because I have never even had the protective cover off. After I took the cover off I fired up the tractor and engaged the rear PTO with the tractor at idle. The noise I heard was scary! It sounds like gears not fully engaged, not grinding, but clunking....not good. The shaft seems to spin fine and the noise does quiet down a lot if I increase the RPM's, but it really has me worried. I get the same noise with the mid PTO engaged. I have never used the PTO without my MMM attached, so I am thinking this may just be a normal noise due to backlash of the gears without any load???? I needed to think of something to ease my mind! Anyway I thought I would ask everyone here about it. Anyone ever engage their PTO without any attachments? If you did, how does it sound at idle? I am hoping someone will tell me this is normal so I can stop worrying that my tractor has a major problem!
I spent so much time trying to figure out the reason for this noise I have yet to attach the MMM. Hopefully I will do that tomorrow night to test my "load" theory and see if the noise goes away with it attached.
Thanks for your help!
BTW I call mine RedHot

 

[archerynut]

Will try it out on my 2310 tomorrow and give you an update. I had a 4 foot brush hog on the rear PTO for the first time this past weekend. When first starting up there was a clunk in the rear but I attributed that to the gearbox and the blades on the brush hog starting up.

 

[madhatter]

Well I was playing, 'er working, with my tractor this weekend and decided I should put the MMM back on and remove the BH. After I took the BH off I decided to take a look at the rear PTO because I have never even had the protective cover off. After I took the cover off I fired up the tractor and engaged the rear PTO with the tractor at idle. The noise I heard was scary! It sounds like gears not fully engaged, not grinding, but clunking....not good. The shaft seems to spin fine and the noise does quiet down a lot if I increase the RPM's, but it really has me worried. I get the same noise with the mid PTO engaged. I have never used the PTO without my MMM attached, so I am thinking this may just be a normal noise due to backlash of the gears without any load???? I needed to think of something to ease my mind! Anyway I thought I would ask everyone here about it. Anyone ever engage their PTO without any attachments? If you did, how does it sound at idle? I am hoping someone will tell me this is normal so I can stop worrying that my tractor has a major problem!
I spent so much time trying to figure out the reason for this noise I have yet to attach the MMM. Hopefully I will do that tomorrow night to test my "load" theory and see if the noise goes away with it attached.
Thanks for your help!
BTW I call mine RedHot

Well..... I am not a Ag mechanic, but I think you may have an issue. PTO's do have a slight "whine" but a "clunk" is not normal. My 2310 does not have the clunk noise, it has the whine at full rpm, but not the clunk. Take it to your dealer and if it is under warranty no worries.... I had a weird issue with mine when i first got it... I had to add oil to the hydraulics for the first 15 hours of use, now it stays full, but I have yet to see any leaks ??? Where did the oil go ? I know at new it has to full the cylinders but I added a lot of oil to for the first few hours.....

 

[archerynut]

The clunking I had got better each time I engaged the mower. The final couple of times it didn't make a noise. The mower had not been run in quite a while (new but sitting around on dealers lot outsie) and I was thinking that I was just getting it broken in the first couple of times.

 

[thing181]

No warranty, hence the worries.
Thanks for taking the time to check your machine Archery.
I did change the hydraulic fluid in the fall when I removed the MMM. The fluids levels are all ok; maybe I should browse through the manual to make sure I didn’t miss something that may affect the PTO?? The noise really is just at idle with no attachments hooked up so I am really hoping it is going to disappear when I attach the MMM. If not, I am going to be really bummed. Not even 200 hours on RedHot yet.....
Thanks for the help guys!

 

[mpegg]

I have a gc2310 with only 44 hours on it. I went out and ran the pto both the middle and rear. They both have a little gear noise when i was idleing but if i gave it a little throttle it seems to get better may be because the engine is louder. Im not to worried about mine i dont think it is very bad.

 

[archerynut]

Went out and checked it without brush hog attached. Little gear noise at idle but not a lot. You know that it is running, but my first impression was "that seems normal, I think".

 

[thing181]

Thanks for checking guys! I think this may be a normal noise, just suprised by the fact that I have never heard it before. Tomorrow the MMM goes on and I will see what effect that has.
Thanks again!

 

[archerynut]

Just talked to the guy at the MF dealership today, I have to pick up my turf tires tomorrow. We got to talking about hte PTO noise and he says that slight gear noise is normal for that machine when there is nothing attached to the rear PTO. He gave me a technical reason that I believe but I am not sure that I could repeat it properly. Well here goes, the gear shaft is straight cut rather than helical cut because it needs some looseness to move back and forth due to the mid and rear PTOs. So the gear noise is normal, I think. I may get some more clarification tomorrow.

 

[archerynut]

Asked again about the gear noise and we started up another 2300 today and it sounded exactly the same as mine. The service guy also said that the noise is greater if there is no MMM attached. I think that your no load theory is correct.