How dangerous is YOUR PTO?

[Al 2]

Many sad stories. A number of years ago near here a guys grandson got to close to the shaft while a snowblower was hooked up and running. An awful mess.

 

[CalG]

Here is one for the safety police how many ways could you kill yourself with this?
View attachment 431045

You are right! That SUV could roll over and kill you any time! Get real, Automobile accedents are the number ONE hazard we all expose ourselves to every day.

PTO's and flat belt drives don't worry me, I know they are dangerous to get near when turning. It's the "other guy" (often myself) that offers the unexpected.

 

[MHarryE]

Ironic thing is the ones who remove their shields or don't replace them if they fail are ones who sue ASAP if they are injured. Combines - customers always say nothing is going to happen to me and next thing they are suing for the arm or leg they lost to a header drive shaft with missing shield, a regular PTO driveline. Even when they knew they were going to fail the still sued hoping for a sympathetic jury. My dad was the same way. Fortunately the accident I had with one of our PTO shafts, totally unguarded, left only a 2" scar on one thumb as a reminder.

 

[paulfun9]

I've never had to replace the plastic shield/cover. I bought an entire new shaft when I got the new tractor & I think it was around $300. I would seriously look into plastic drain pipe etc prior to paying $200 for a new shield.

However, I would want to be certain the plastic df pipe was doing the job. It makes me shiver just to think of my flannel shirt beginning to wrap around the PTO shaft.

I still practice the first thing that I was told about operating any type machine. No baggy or hanging clothes!

 

[yoder]

Ironic thing is the ones who remove their shields or don't replace them if they fail are ones who sue ASAP if they are injured. Combines - customers always say nothing is going to happen to me and next thing they are suing for the arm or leg they lost to a header drive shaft with missing shield, a regular PTO driveline. Even when they knew they were going to fail the still sued hoping for a sympathetic jury. My dad was the same way. Fortunately the accident I had with one of our PTO shafts, totally unguarded, left only a 2" scar on one thumb as a reminder.

I beg to differ sir . I removed my bush hog
Pto sheld because it is so hard to grease with it on there and I am far far from a sue happy
Liberal want a free ride guy. If it was a stationary unit I would keep something on there but when I am off it is off.

 

[paulfun9]

The people that remove or don't replace are the same ones that don't need that silly seat switch that shuts the tractor off when no one is in the seat.
I live in farm country and have seen the results of not using this safety equiptment;and it's not pretty at all.
I will keep mine on and what-ever replacement cost is,it's a lot less than severed arms and a thrashing death.

Sad thing with this post is I have seen what happens as well and in every case I also see the other things the person should not have been doing that actually caused the accident to happen. In many cases the accident would have been minimized by some of the safety devices but the hard facts are that the other things should not have been done as well.

Common sense! Being aware of your surroundings, following the rules of operation will keep you out of trouble much better than any safety device they can install.

First rule of tractor or any machine is that the NUMBER ONE most important safety device is You. My Grandfather used to say what will these fools do when one of their safety devices fail and the bad habits they have created because they rely so heavily on the safety device puts them immediately in harms way!

So for me the seat safety switch is disconnected and I still don't get near the turning PTO. Been running tractors since I was a kid and none of those machines had any safety devices on them but using common sense and diligence in operation has kept me out of trouble so far so when the seat switch becomes an annoyance it gets disconnected and when a PTO shaft cover gets out of shape it gets repaired when I have time not right now because the operation of the machine will be the same with or without it and no one will get close to it while its spinning either way!

 

[aczlan]

Your PTO will also be unsafe if you replace the shear pin with wire. Here's what happened to a friend of mine: She was driving a tractor with a shredder. Someone had replaced a broken shear pin with a piece of wire. The lady hit a solid object which caused the back end of the PTO to break loose from the gear box, allowing the still rotating shaft to fly up and hit her in the head and put her into a 6 week coma. This happened years ago but the brain damage lingers on. Worthy of note, the old tractor she was driving was before ROPS were standard equipment.

Generally, there is a secondary retainer (a c clip on our bushhog) to keep the shaft attached at both ends if the shearpin lets go.
If you have something with a shearpin, PLEASE make sure the shaft can't come loose if the shearpin breaks.

Aaron Z

 

[RoyJackson]

I still practice the first thing that I was told about operating any type machine. No baggy or hanging clothes!

And snug gloves! Never the gauntlet type! You want elastic around the wrist.

 

[ovrszd]

As terrible as that is, he's fortunate it wasn't worse. Obviously didn't wrap him up...

My wife's grandpa is missing his right arm at the shoulder from a hay baler accident. Back in the day, before the word safety was invented, he was shoulder deep removing a clog in the baler. Not sure of the details, but someone engaged the tractor before he was done. Hanging on with his left arm is the only thing that kept him from going all the way in.

Again, as a kid, I saw our neighbor stuck in an old Allis Chalmers round baler the same way. Right arm to the shoulder. Saved his arm but messed it up pretty bad. Watched my Dad disassemble the baler to get him out. Then we hauled him to the ER in the pickup. No ambulances back then.

 

[MHarryE]

I beg to differ sir . I removed my bush hog Pto sheld because it is so hard to grease with it on there and I am far far from a sue happy Liberal want a free ride guy. If it was a stationary unit I would keep something on there but when I am off it is off.

You have the Liberal vs Conservative i idealism wrong. We're talking people who have list their livelihood, mostly farmers who tend to be conservative. Suddenly they have lost their ability to earn a living. They also often face large medical bills. Very conservative types file lawsuits in hopes of a settlement that will provide for their living.

Allis-Chalmers Roto-Balers were mentioned. Major mistake on Allis' part. So many farmers had disabling injuries that at one time A-C considered buying them back - years after the last one left the factory. After the A-C bankruptcy the sole remaining person who had worked on those balers was our Operators Manual writer. We went overboard on safety precautions due to his background litigating lawsuits. Seeing pictures, reading police reports - luckily I have a strong stomach. Like the driver who disabled his OPD, then fell off his machine and was run over and crushed. Even with injuries so severe he lived long enough to say, "Help me!", to the person coming to his aid. His family sued citing a faulty OPD but the court immediately issued a summary judgement upon finding the OPD was disabled. In this case a family suddenly lost their sole means of support.