Cautionary tale. Check your Shear Bolts and get a fire extinguisher for your tractor

[Soundguy]

waiting to hear back what the op finds from the dealer / manufacturer on that shaft..

[cheoah]

Can't wait to hear how this story turns out. Sure seems like using a grade 8 hardened bolt defeats the purpose of having a shear bolt.

Well it depends on the size of the bolt and the size of a drive line. Sounds like this driveline is under sized but with no pictures I can't really get a handle on on it.

[Soundguy]

and one would think it's the driveline supplied with the blower.. etc..

[canoetrpr]

My dealer is picking up the tractor tomorrow. I've been talking to the service manager. This definitely is the shaft that came with this blower. He still hasn't heard back from the manufacturer but seemed to be confident that they would figure it out by tomorrow and have me going again late afternoon. I'm guessing he wants to take a look at it to help figure out his theory on what happened. We were both on the same page that we don't want to just replace the shaft here only to have this happen again so I imagine he has some confidence that he will be able to sort things out within the day once he has the unit.

[Soundguy]

best of luck!

[cheoah]

Can't wait to hear how this story turns out. Sure seems like using a grade 8 hardened bolt defeats the purpose of having a shear bolt.

Well it depends on the size of the bolt and the size of a drive line. Sounds like this driveline is under sized but with no pictures I can't really get a handle on on it.

[canoetrpr]

Here's the long awaited story friends. Embarrassing but I owe you all an update. My dealer's opinion is that the rather long drawbar which this tractor has interfered with the PTO shaft. When the blower and tractor are on level ground the shaft just clears the drawbar. I see his point - if the blower gets into a low spot, the shaft could catch on the drawbar.

To avoid this, the draw bar needs to be moved to the side - which it can be, or removed.

Since this is operator error, I'm out the cost of the repairs which I accept. I guess this wasn't obvious to me since I never had to worry about this sort of thing with my last tractor. I'm going to go over my owners manual again to make sure there isn't something else that I have looked over.

The drive line was over $350 - ouch! Good news: The tractor and blower are fine.

Now I can't wait for the next big snow to have a positive experience clearing it!

[JerryG]

I'm sure your dealer is right. I have a piece of equipment that forces me to slide my draw bar into a shorter position to prevent the shaft from hitting. I know you have been told to use a #8 but if your not comfortable, just use a #5. If you do that and you start breaking shear bolts, you can always go back to #8. Or grind a grove around the #8 . If you decide the grind method, it needs to be done in a certain place to work properly. Let me know if you wast to go that way and I will post a diagram. Good luck!

[Soundguy]

thanks for the update.

good luck with the repairs and next operation.

[canoetrpr]

I might go with the #5 shear bolt anyway. Not sure. The manufacturer of the blower very explicitly calls out #8 as an exception for this shear bolt so I'm guessing they know what they are doing.

My dealer has not done wrong by me at all. They have always been a pleasure to deal with and I've got decent confidence that the service manager is right here.