glennmac
Veteran Member
Why Aren\'t PTO\'s Hydraulic?
Why have we been shafted instead of oiled?
It seems that hydraulics power all the heavy lifting attachments: buckets, hoes, blades, cranes, derricks, etc. So, why aren't tractors designed to transfer power from rear and mid PTO's via hydraulics instead of rotating shafts.
Hydraulics must be more powerful, given their use on all the heavy lifting stuff. The attachment would also be easier to perform. A few light quick-coupling hoses instead of heavy, clumsy shafts. You have to be a real contortionist to get the shaft on a belly deck, a process that gets real old as you get real old.
Actually, Ingersoll makes a line of garden tractors that are completely hydraulically driven. I have always been impressed by them. They even give a lifetime warranty on the system. I don't know whether they put hydraulic PTO's on the larger Case tractors when Ingersoll was part of Case.
In a sense, this question is somewhat academic. Tractor manufacturers would now be deterred from offering hydraulic PTO's because they would be incompatible with the universe of shaft implements that now exist. But why didn't they offer hydraulics originally, or did they?
Glenn
Why have we been shafted instead of oiled?
It seems that hydraulics power all the heavy lifting attachments: buckets, hoes, blades, cranes, derricks, etc. So, why aren't tractors designed to transfer power from rear and mid PTO's via hydraulics instead of rotating shafts.
Hydraulics must be more powerful, given their use on all the heavy lifting stuff. The attachment would also be easier to perform. A few light quick-coupling hoses instead of heavy, clumsy shafts. You have to be a real contortionist to get the shaft on a belly deck, a process that gets real old as you get real old.
Actually, Ingersoll makes a line of garden tractors that are completely hydraulically driven. I have always been impressed by them. They even give a lifetime warranty on the system. I don't know whether they put hydraulic PTO's on the larger Case tractors when Ingersoll was part of Case.
In a sense, this question is somewhat academic. Tractor manufacturers would now be deterred from offering hydraulic PTO's because they would be incompatible with the universe of shaft implements that now exist. But why didn't they offer hydraulics originally, or did they?
Glenn