2516 pto disengaging itself

[smtwn94]

The pto on my 2516 gear disengages itself when I use it on the 3pt rototiller. As soon as I hit a few stones and the tiller starts to jump a bit the pto disengages itself. The lever remains in the engaged position but the pto stops turning. As soon as I step on the clutch or Idle down the tractor it bangs and the pto reengages itself. The slip clutch on tiller works so I am thinking it must be something internal on the tractor. The pto works fine on the finish mower and brushhog. There are no adjustments on the linkages on the pto control and the lever snaps into the detent position and stays there throughout the whole process.
Any advice? Thanks in advance!!

 

[LAWALLSTRACTOR]

Maybe lubricate the linkage on the PTO enguagement.

 

[DavesTractor]

The pto on my 2516 gear disengages itself when I use it on the 3pt rototiller. As soon as I hit a few stones and the tiller starts to jump a bit the pto disengages itself. The lever remains in the engaged position but the pto stops turning. As soon as I step on the clutch or Idle down the tractor it bangs and the pto reengages itself. The slip clutch on tiller works so I am thinking it must be something internal on the tractor. The pto works fine on the finish mower and brushhog. There are no adjustments on the linkages on the pto control and the lever snaps into the detent position and stays there throughout the whole process.
Any advice? Thanks in advance!!

It is the PTO over-running clutch inside the transmission. It is made to keep the tractor from being pushed from the stored energy of a implement like a rotary mower. However it will slip when encountering a big PTO shock load. It is a silent type OR clutch, not the ratcheting type.

What size tiller, what are the soil conditions like, etc?

 

[smtwn94]

It is the PTO over-running clutch inside the transmission. It is made to keep the tractor from being pushed from the stored energy of a implement like a rotary mower. However it will slip when encountering a big PTO shock load. It is a silent type OR clutch, not the ratcheting type.

What size tiller, what are the soil conditions like, etc?

It is a 50" land pride tiller. I have sand on one end of the garden and nice loam on the other end. The small garden has a lot of clay. If I hit a stone the size of a baseball it will stop the pto, until I idle down or step on the clutch then it reengages.
It pretty much makes the tiller unusable. Is their something that is broke or worn out in the slip clutch? Or is it just the way they are?

 

[DavesTractor]

It is a 50" land pride tiller. I have sand on one end of the garden and nice loam on the other end. The small garden has a lot of clay. If I hit a stone the size of a baseball it will stop the pto, until I idle down or step on the clutch then it reengages.
It pretty much makes the tiller unusable. Is their something that is broke or worn out in the slip clutch? Or is it just the way they are?

For it to be able to occasionally slip is good, but if it occurs so often to make tilling a pain, then you have a problem that needs to be fixed. Call your dealer. If he is not aware of the issue, feel free to have him call me at Dave's Tractor in Red Bluff, CA. A 50" tiller on a gear drive is a lot of tiller since you don't have a true crawl range.

 

[matt701]

Hello, sorry to revive a really old thread, but I'm having the exact problem listed with the same exact tiller on my 2615hst. This is my third year using the tiller and I was impressed it had a safety shut down when I hit rocks, only this year it's become barely usable. Most of the rocks have been removed from the garden and now hard pack dirt is making the PTO disengage. Basically, i start the tiller, drive 2' and the PTO shuts down. I push the clutch, the pto slightly rotates and I know it engaged and i release the clutch. Drive forward 2' and it disengages again. Sometimes it will stay in gear, but it seems to randomly shut down now. I tried oiling the linkages and took a rubber mallet and hit the linkages to see if they just weren't going fully into gear and it didn't help. Is this an expensive fix? I have 350 hours on it and have a few other problems and recently inherited my dads massey compact that has 1000 hours on it with no problems and I've been thinking more and more about selling this one. The finish mower and snowblower all run fine.

 

[DavesTractor]

Sounds like the PTO over-running clutch has failed. The PTO OR clutch is not really meant to be a safety or a slip clutch, it is meant to function when using a mower mostly. Without an OR clutch, the mower will power the transmission and drive the tractor forward even if the foot clutch is depressed. It is dangerous. Old Ford 9Ns were this way, as were most of the early grey market tractors. For those type of tractors there is an OR clutch adapter that goes on the PTO and keeps the spinning implement from driving the tractor. Modern tractors have this feature built in. Earlier OR clutches were ratcheting types. On a 2615/2816/3
015 if you push in the clutch with a spinning mower, you will hear a loud clicking ratcheting sound. Noisy, but bullet proof. So that is some history of OR clutches.

The 2415/2516/3016/3616 uses a silent OR clutch. They work fantastic, but if you get into a rototilling situation where the tiller is bouncing off rocks it will cause the OR clutch to slip. It is not designed to slip. If you do this enough times, it causes the OR clutch to fail. A tiller really must have a slip clutch of its own, and it needs to be adjusted so it slips before the internal OR clutch slips. If your tiller has a slip clutch and it is like most slip clutches, it is stuck. They need to occasionally be loosened up, slipped a little to clean off the rust, and then tightened back down correctly.

The tractor has to be split to replace the OR clutch. It is a simple enough job for a trained technician. Nothing complicated, but it does take some time.