Stuck PTO shaft saga

284 International · Mar 12, 2012

What is the worst case of a bound up PTO shaft anyone has had? I had mine
today.

I picked up an older Brush Hog brand cutter awhile ago, and decided to test it out today. When I tried to hook it up, I discovered the PTO shaft was stuck in the collapsed position. I've had this happen on older equipment, so I attached one end of the shaft to my pickup, ran a chain under the belly of the tractor, and backed away, thinking I could pull the shaft out.

No luck: the tractor just spun, even with the differential locked. This kind of surprised me, because that was a substantial pull. I sprayed penetrating oil around the junction, and tried walloping the shaft to collapse it more. Frustrated, I decided to quit fooling with it and just pull it apart. I blocked the tires of the pickup, set the parking brake in 4 wheel drive low range, and chained one end of the PTO shaft to the hitch. I pinned the other end to my IH 464, certain I would just ease the two halves apart.

Nope. The tractor ended up spinning the tires and the shaft never budged. At this point I was starting to get concerned: the 464 weighs 5100 odd pounds naked, has filled tires, and had a heavy disk out back, so is approaching 7000 pounds with me on it. I didn't want to "bounce" at the end of the chain, since I was afraid of damaging the pickup.

In desperation, I rigged the shaft onto my 20 ton press with some chain and arbor plates. While it obviously wasn't 40,000 lbs of force, I ended up bending some links on my 5/16" Grade 70 chain at the same moment when, with a loud bang, the tubes finally slipped apart and a cascade of black rust-water sprayed everywhere. I cleaned the tubes, sand blasted the sliding surfaces, regressed, and it slides freely and smoothly. I'll end up replacing the U-joint crosses after this fiasco, but remarkably, they didn't show any signs of damage, and were free moving and smooth.

So, who else has had a severely frozen PTO shaft, and what sort of Rube Goldberg apparatus did it take to get it apart?

F250DSLPWR · Mar 12, 2012

On my M5040, I had my beltec drill attached to the 3pt. The PTO shaft connected and everything works fine. I went to remove the beltec and the PTO shaft from the tractor and could not get it apart so that I could slide the coupler off the tractors PTO. It is a spring loaded ball coupler assembly that locks on to the shaft, I tried everything, it is not rusted up or anything, so I was concerned that the key ways had twisted... Well, I took the coupler assembly apart by removing the snap rig, spring, slide and balls and it still would not come off. I soaked it with PB Blaster and let it sit for awhile. Hammered on it with a rubber mallet and still stuck. Finally I wrapped a chain around it and gave it a tug and it came off. All the parts look good and straight, so I still have not figured out why it was stuck...

DJ54 · Mar 12, 2012

I had a short shaft on my 3 pt. cement mixer stuck. I removed it from the mixer, and hung in a vise, then sprayed Kroil around the shaft several times a day. After about a week, some persuasion with a 3 lb. hammer, it came apart.

A longer one on a bush hog was a little tougher. The safety tube on the outside ws missing, so it made it a little easier. My uncle told me to heat it with a torch, then rap it with a good sized hammer along the tube, on a couple sides. Had to do it twice, but some tapping on the end got it moving, and it came apart after a good shot of penetrant.

KubotaSam · Mar 12, 2012

The pto shaft on my Landpride finish mower had been left outside when I bought it. It was stuck in the collapsed position. I chained one end to one tree hooked a come-along to the other end, then to another tree. Put some pressure on it, sprayed with penetrating oil, hit the side lightly with a hammer. I left pressure on it for about 4 days. Each time I happened to walk past I would spray it and tap the side. It finally bloke free. I disassembled it and cleaned everything.

DieselMonk · Mar 12, 2012

Nothing beats heat from a welding torch!

deezler · Mar 12, 2012

That's funny, my buddy and I spent a couple hours working on this very problem yesterday.

Picked up a well used king kutter brush hog recently, and the shaft was stuck in the shortest, collapsed position. We ended up using a heavy duty ratchet strap from the front tractor frame back to the shaft, with the mower mounted on the tractor, to finally break it free. This was after we already busted a smaller ratchet strap trying the same procedure, haha.

Then our next problem surfaced - even though the pto coupler on the mower shaft looked clean, for the life of us we couldn't get it to slip all the way onto the tractor to lock in securely. Anyone have any tips here?

And actually we have one more problem (not to hi-jack the thread, but...). The pto shaft is also totally stuck on the mower side input shaft. The shear pin is clearly totally busted and gone, and the shaft coupler is pressed even further onto the mower, but won't freakin budge or come off with heavy prying. Arg!

nickel plate · Mar 12, 2012

deezler said:
And actually we have one more problem (not to hi-jack the thread, but...). The pto shaft is also totally stuck on the mower side input shaft. The shear pin is clearly totally busted and gone, and the shaft coupler is pressed even further onto the mower, but won't freakin budge or come off with heavy prying. Arg!

I just went through a PTO removal, clean up and re-greasing on my older Bush Hog 480 Squealer. After removing the shear bolt I tried to pull the PTO half shaft off of the gear box shaft with no luck so I chipped away the hardened gunk at the end of the gear box shaft and found a retaining ring that also holds the half shaft on the gear box shaft. Once I got the retaining ring off, the PTO half shaft came off with no effort.
I did go online and down loaded a parts diagram (which shows the retaining ring) as my owner's manual mentions nothing about complete shaft removal maintenance.

deezler · Mar 12, 2012

nickel plate said:
I just went through a PTO removal, clean up and re-greasing on my older Bush Hog 480 Squealer. After removing the shear bolt I tried to pull the PTO half shaft off of the gear box shaft with no luck so I chipped away the hardened gunk at the end of the gear box shaft and found a retaining ring that also holds the half shaft on the gear box shaft. Once I got the retaining ring off, the PTO half shaft came off with no effort.
I did go online and down loaded a parts diagram (which shows the retaining ring) as my owner's manual mentions nothing about complete shaft removal maintenance.

Thanks for the tips! I will check for any retaining rings/clips, etc, but I think I have a different problem, as somehow after the shear pin broke, the shaft went further onto the gearbox shaft... need to get some pb blaster in there for a few days and try prying some more.

284 International · Mar 12, 2012

deezler said:
Then our next problem surfaced - even though the pto coupler on the mower shaft looked clean, for the life of us we couldn't get it to slip all the way onto the tractor to lock in securely. Anyone have any tips here?

The best thing I have found is a sand blaster nozzle spraying all the crevices and high spots. Before I had a sandblaster, I used a stainless steel rifle cleaning brush with brake cleaner and/or naval jelly.

No worries about a hijack. I'm interested to hear the array of problems and solutions people have had with these things.

rsewill · Mar 12, 2012

284 International said:
What is the worst case of a bound up PTO shaft anyone has had? I had mine
today.

I picked up an older Brush Hog brand cutter awhile ago, and decided to test it out today. When I tried to hook it up, I discovered the PTO shaft was stuck in the collapsed position. I've had this happen on older equipment, so I attached one end of the shaft to my pickup, ran a chain under the belly of the tractor, and backed away, thinking I could pull the shaft out.

No luck: the tractor just spun, even with the differential locked. This kind of surprised me, because that was a substantial pull. I sprayed penetrating oil around the junction, and tried walloping the shaft to collapse it more. Frustrated, I decided to quit fooling with it and just pull it apart. I blocked the tires of the pickup, set the parking brake in 4 wheel drive low range, and chained one end of the PTO shaft to the hitch. I pinned the other end to my IH 464, certain I would just ease the two halves apart.

Nope. The tractor ended up spinning the tires and the shaft never budged. At this point I was starting to get concerned: the 464 weighs 5100 odd pounds naked, has filled tires, and had a heavy disk out back, so is approaching 7000 pounds with me on it. I didn't want to "bounce" at the end of the chain, since I was afraid of damaging the pickup.

In desperation, I rigged the shaft onto my 20 ton press with some chain and arbor plates. While it obviously wasn't 40,000 lbs of force, I ended up bending some links on my 5/16" Grade 70 chain at the same moment when, with a loud bang, the tubes finally slipped apart and a cascade of black rust-water sprayed everywhere. I cleaned the tubes, sand blasted the sliding surfaces, regressed, and it slides freely and smoothly. I'll end up replacing the U-joint crosses after this fiasco, but remarkably, they didn't show any signs of damage, and were free moving and smooth.

So, who else has had a severely frozen PTO shaft, and what sort of Rube Goldberg apparatus did it take to get it apart?