My PTO doesn't work?!?

[Marks481]

My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

MY PTO DOESN't WORK! Am I doing something wrong here? I tried both the mower and the PHD. Shouldn't they get hydraulics when you flip the PTO switch? I get nothing... no spinning mower, no spinning PTO. What am I missing?

Otherwise, I am going to pull out my multitester and see if the PTO solenoid is getting juice... assuming I can find a convenient attachment point to tap into the pigtales on the solenoid.

 

[Gravy]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

Use the multitester, Luke...I mean Tim...

I'd suspect the switch first, then the wiring, then the solenoid valve.

But, hey - whadda I know?

Good luck!

Gravy

 

[Marks481]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

Well, I think the solenoid is bad. There is a spade plug on one of the pigtails going to the PTO valve solenoid, and it gets power when you flip the PTO switch. The other pigtail is bolted to the chasis to supply the ground. The solenoid read 4.7 ohms resistance, which seems awfully low (I would expect 10-20x that amount). When I jumpered the solenoid leads directly to the battery, I did not feel it (or here it) click, which I would expect from a solenoid.

Dang. You would think that this would be caught at the factory before shipping. I had hoped to dig alot of post holes tomorrow and Friday, so SWMBO would see that there was really a good reason to spend all this money on a toy when she got back from her folks on Sunday.

 

[J_J]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

I would call Pt first thing on Friday and have them ship you another solenoid, one day air service.

 

[Marks481]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

I called Power Trac. Terry said he knew exactly what the problem was, that the spool in the solenoid valve was overtightened, causing it to elongate and fail. Spec was to tighten it to 7 ft-lbs. He said they had four of these that just failed recently after being shipped.

I am not convinced, but he is shipping me a new spool to install. Why I am not convinced is that he seemed to think that I probably saw some erratic operation before failure, not that it never even worked at all (0.8 hrs on the meter right now). It doesn't make me real happy that something like this slipped through their quality control, and that I was delivered a non-working product. This was an expensive purchase, and I didn't really expect to spend my first week with it overhauling the solenoid valve instead of digging holes or mowing the lawn.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

Tim:
I'm sorry to hear about a frustrating experience. It's disappointing when a new thing doesn't work.
I don't know anything about the innards of the solenoids. I had the one in my 1845 PTO stick on last summer, but ultimately started working properly. Terry sent me new parts just in case.
Suspicion: Your PTO may have been engaged, and running against the relief valve when it was moved one or more of the times during transit. That might account for the short period of operation that Terry suspected.(No evidence, just a thought.)
I hope you're up and running soon.

 

[Marks481]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

Well, I gotta say that Terry must be a mechanical genius, since he diagnosed my problem before I had explained it to him.

He said the solenoid spool was overtorqued during installation, which distorted it and is interfering with the spool travel. I took the valve apart, and sure enough, the spool was shifting, but only about 1/2", and it looks like it should shift about 1-1.5" (which Terry confirmed). It is actually working right now, but the spool is probably throttling flow by about 50%. Terry said that it will probably stick shut again once the motor heats up, and the clearances in the solenoid assembly decrease.

A new assembly is shipping. It probably took me about 15 minutes to disassemble and reassemble the exiting spool, so repair should be pretty simple.

 

[J_J]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

There is a note, somewhere about not engaging the PTO without an implement attached that has a hyd motor on it such as a mower. If you do engage the PTO, you will load the engine and the relief valve will start to whine. Some one in the delivery chain could have been playing with the switches and snapped on the PTO switch not knowing what it is supposed to do.

 

[tracdoc]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I took the valve apart, and sure enough, the spool was shifting, but only about 1/2", and it looks like it should shift about 1-1.5" )</font>

Hats off to you Tim, for jumping in there and investigating the problem on your new unit. I'd like to think I might do the same, but high likelihood that I would be carping and growling /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

For my own education on this, where is the solenoid spool, and how did you go about taking it apart and inspecting it (in 15', too)??

 

[Marks481]

Re: My PTO doesn\'t work?!?

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures with it apart. I will when I dissassembly it again after I get the replacement spool.

The PTO Solenoid valve is located (in the PT422) in the front left side of the engine compartment. The silver cylinder coming out of the aluminum valve block is the solenoid coil (with the red square around it). The nut (with the yellow circle) has imprinted on it "Do not torque greater then 10 ft-lbs" (which reportedly was the source of my problems). Unscrewing that 1 1/4" nut allows the coil to slide of of the spool housing. The spool can then be unscrewed from the side of the aluminum valve block.

Of course, first you have to unbolt the bracket holding the solenoid valve, since the tram pump is in the way. To get in there to do that, you have to take the gas tank off. Ohh, and to get at the bolts holding the bracket from the outside, you have to take the left rear wheel off.

Removing and installing the bracket took 20 minutes. removing and replacing the spool took 2 minutes.

But at least I got to dig some holes with my PHD and by minihoe. Man the ground is hard around here... lots of rocks right below the surface.