3038h pto shaft free spin

[Tarnold]

Any way to spin pto shaft to ease hooking up pto shaft equipment? Tried motor off, neutral no go

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I have PTO neutral for this... Does the Deere have something similar?

 

[Bobrown14]

pto shift lever to Neutral

 

[Tarnold]

Electric pto??

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Mine is an electric PTO, but they are all capable of having a neutral. I have neutral and Epto, which are mechanical selectors, but the PTO is controlled electronically

 

[GS650GL]

A 3038 has electric pto switch that turns on a solenoid valve which turns on hydraulic oil pressure to the pto clutch. Electric over hydraulic some people would call it. There is a pto brake that is engaged when the pto clutch is disengaged so the pto shaft will not turn when it is turned off. Without the brake, viscous drag in the hydraulic pto clutch will cause the output shaft to turn slowly or "creep". Problem is, the brake won't let you turn it by hand either. Some tractors with electric pto also have a pto shift lever so that the pto output shaft can be mechanically disengaged from the pto clutch and brake to allow you to easily turn the shaft to make hooking up implements easier. Sort of a neutral as others have said, but unfortunately, a 3038 does not have this feature. Some of the MT3 series do. Certain implements are easy to turn by hand so you can turn the implement pto shaft instead of the tractor shaft. Other implements are next to impossible to turn by hand without sticking a bar through the universal joint to give you some leverage. When hooking up a tiller, raising it up off the ground with the hitch first will make it easy to turn and attach the shaft, since you can't turn it with the tiller on the ground.

 

[Tarnold]

OP, thank you, very detailed.

 

[workinonit]

On mine the brake disengages when the tractor is off. It's engaged when the PTO is off and the tractor is running.

 

[Runner]

If you have a mid-PTO, you might try shifting the lever to that setting instead of neutral. Seems like on my 2520, the rear shaft wouldn't turn in the neutral position, but it absolutely will turn freely with the lever set to mid-PTO position, engine running or not. I do it that way all the time when switching from one PTO operated attachment to another. Sucks when you've been using it and everything is hot.... I know, put gloves on like they do in the John Deere instructional videos....

 

[Avenger]

To expand upon what @GS650GL mentioned, if you hook up your implement, raise it up off the ground, you can likely turn the implement side of the PTO to line up with the PTO splines. If you cannot, try 'bumping' the shaft:

At an idle, turn on your PTO (with nothing touching it), and right back off again. Try to line up the splines. Still stuck? Do it again. Repeat until it does. This may require several trips to the switch and back to the shaft.

Alternatively, you can bar the implement over. If it is really that stuck, you may want to rethink hooking it up and using the tractor to turn it. Something is probably bound up and and will either sheer the pin, slip the clutch, or burn up/brake your tractor PTO. If the implement is so stuck when raised up, implement not touching the ground or something else that might prevent it from turning by hand, then check bearings and gear boxes.