ritcheyvs
Veteran Member
Shear bolts are not run of the mill bolt you can pickup at some hardware store. and pending on PHD you get may require a specific grade of metal the bolt is made out of, to be a shear bolt. ((to strong of metal and shear bolt does not get cut)), ((too week of metal, and you end up going through sheer bolts left and right))
Shear bolts are often common bolt sizes (e.g. 1/2 by 3 1/2 course) but they MUST be the correct strength, as boggen points out. My rotary cutter uses a grade 5 bolt. When I tried a handy grade 3 replacement it sheared as soon as I engaged the PTO clutch. A grade 8 would likely destroy the gear box (or worse) if I hit the right obstacle.
Also, see table in this article for definition of various 3-point hitch categories:
Three-point hitch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia