I put a small dent in the outer part (female part) of my PTO shaft with the FEL bucket, so it's bent slightly. It still works but vibrates a bit. If I put this thing on a hydraulic arbor press, do you think I can straighten it and improve things? Or should I just forget it.
3-Point Hitch Straighten PTO shaft?
- Thread starter BeezFun
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I can't speak for the success rate of straightening a hollow, shaped shaft.
If you can find the right size shaft stock and take it to a place that builds truck or such drive shafts it would cost you about $40-50 total. I bought a chipper that came with a bent PTO shaft and I payed $18 for the stock and another $20 or so for the replacing of bent stock. A bit of hunting was required to find a place that sells PTO shaft stock in the right size for my chipper.
Edit: My first suggestion is that you should not run it with the bent shaft. My guess is that vibration could cause premature "U" joint or some other failure. It costs a lot more money to replace an extra "U" joint or even more for the whole assembly.
If you can find the right size shaft stock and take it to a place that builds truck or such drive shafts it would cost you about $40-50 total. I bought a chipper that came with a bent PTO shaft and I payed $18 for the stock and another $20 or so for the replacing of bent stock. A bit of hunting was required to find a place that sells PTO shaft stock in the right size for my chipper.
Edit: My first suggestion is that you should not run it with the bent shaft. My guess is that vibration could cause premature "U" joint or some other failure. It costs a lot more money to replace an extra "U" joint or even more for the whole assembly.
What have you got to lose by straightening it. Straighten it and if it vibrates then think about replacing pieces. If you can still run it I doubt it has been bent enough to affect integrity of the shaft. I would be somewhat concerned about the sliding fit between the male and female portion of the shaft.
We used to balance car drive shafts by just using a hose clamp and a metal weights and do a trail and error to see where it smoothed out. Sometimes we tack welded a weight on the shaft and other times we just left the hose clamp and weight on it. It's not rocket science at 540 rpms on tractors.
We used to balance car drive shafts by just using a hose clamp and a metal weights and do a trail and error to see where it smoothed out. Sometimes we tack welded a weight on the shaft and other times we just left the hose clamp and weight on it. It's not rocket science at 540 rpms on tractors.
art
Super Member
As a dealer keep running it!!!! It's sure to take the gearbox and depending on the angles will probably take the PTO out of the back of the tractor!!!!
Those shafts slide back and forth the whole time it's running unless they are in perfect aliagnment and will take ot the next weakest link.
We see plenty of people replacing broken well lubed u-joints but they have never spent the time to grease the tubes that have to slide!!!!!
Those shafts slide back and forth the whole time it's running unless they are in perfect aliagnment and will take ot the next weakest link.
We see plenty of people replacing broken well lubed u-joints but they have never spent the time to grease the tubes that have to slide!!!!!
lilranch2001
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my vote is to weld on a new outer shaft, I am fairly good with metal and I tried to fix a small ding and all it did was waste my time, still vibrated even at 540 RPM
KubieTwo
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Beez, I think you are trying to do the right thing and you realize you should not run something with abnormal vibration. Art and several others have given you good advice that agrees with your own intuition. There are various ways of repairing it, and even replacing it will in the long run be far cheaper than running it bent. Some time back there was a very lengthy thread with several BX owners running decks with vibration bad enough to shake all the bolts out of the spindles....repeatedly. Some spoke of the different types of nuts they had tried to keep the bolts tight, but very few were concerned about addressing the source of the vibration that was shaking them loose. As Art conveyed, an ignored vibration will take out a lot of expensive things in pretty short order. This is an easy one as you already know the problem.
crazyal
Super Member
Either replace it or take it to a place that builds drive shafts. Around here there's one that builds drive shafts for trucks that has a very large lathe. They put the shafts in it and can find the run out and straighten them and add weight to balance them as needed.
I believe you are getting good advice about taking your shaft to a shop that specializes in PTO and drive shafts.
Having said that, quite a few of the shafts we balanced and straightened were brand new PTO shafts from "reputable" dealers and manufacturers. I did/do have a lathe to spin some of these shaft on. The lathe was also heavy enough (26" x 8.5' between centers) to perform the straightening process right on the lathe. It was unbelievable the amount of run out found on some of the PTO shafts. PTO shafts by their very nature with the sliding fits to hook up and vary length will not run perfect.
Most of the PTOs had a short section of square drive on the female end and I doubt you have hurt that section
KubieTwo
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I agree with you it can be very reliably repaired and thought that was what I said above, except I think they will probably just replace the bent part on something that short. If they have the tubing it might take less time to cut and weld than to straighten...again depending on the condition. After looking at the shaft they would propose the repair, whatever that is.
Not sure how, if it is either replaced with a new one or the bent section is cut off and replaced by a reputable shaft shop that "...when you least expect it, half the shaft will fail.(transit)" If that is true, then a new one it is I suppose. I don't think a good shop would repair it if they didn't think it would be reliable, but that is just my opinion. I have had all kinds of shafts repaired, shortened, lengthened, balanced, etc with never a problem, but maybe I have been very lucky. It I ever had a shaft that could not be economically repaired the shop told me and I went to plan B. Guess I missed something somewhere.