3225 PTO

barticus73 · Oct 6, 2004

I have a Cub Cadet 3225 with 54" deck and all of the sudden my pto doesn't want to spin. I pulled the deck and cleaned her all up and greased it and it spins really easily by hand. The PTO spindle on the tractor will spin with the deck off as well. When I put the deck back on and engage the PTO, It tries to go and if I give it a little assistance by pushing the belts with my foot it will slowly come up to speed? Any ideas what the problem is?

jrlichina · Oct 7, 2004

1 - Never use your feet or hands to coax belts or anything like that, good way to loose them.

2 - The PTO is an electo-mechanical clutch. First, check to make sure all the electrical connections that go to the clutch are clean and tight. Next, check the air gap and see if it is too large. Unfortunately it sounds like the clutch is shot. Either the magnetic coil is getting weak or the friction material is worn out. I think this is not a serviceable unit so you will most likely need to replace the whole darn thing. I know that's how Simplicity makes them now and they run around 100 bucks.

ducati996 · Oct 7, 2004

The Cub 3000 series are vaccum activated -no electrical clutch
mechinism involved. The key advantage is less expensive to replace, and you can engage at any RPM

Your dealer can suppy what you need quickly...or someone over the internet....readily available parts

Ducati

riches139 · Oct 7, 2004

Sounds like you've got a vacume leak somewhere in the system.

Check all the lines going from engine to pto switch to vacume pulloff.

You're engine will have higher vacume at lower rpm's to engage the pto.

barticus73 · Oct 8, 2004

My operators manual says to check for low battery voltage or bad vacuum lines. The vacuum seems good. When I engage the pto, the diaphram mechanism sucks right in. What role does the battery play in this setup?

Jerry

jrlichina · Oct 8, 2004

Interesting that they would use a vaccum operated PTO, hopefully that would keep replacement costs lower. The low battery may be related to if it uses an electrical operated vaccum switch. Is the switch purely mechanical or does it have electrical connections as well? I'd still check the lines for leaks, you may have enough vaccum to pull it in but it might not be fully engaging the PTO. I'd also check the diaphram to see that it holds vaccum as well. You'd have to rig up a tester so you can apply full vaccum then shut off the supply so you can see if the disphram holds for at least a few minutes. Do the same for the lines. Ford Super Duty trucks use vaccum pulses to lock and unlock the hubs on the 4x4s. These are pain to fix because of where leaks can develop. In this case the vaccum operated hubs are not cheaper to fix, but that''s a whole other disscusion....

barticus73 · Nov 1, 2004

ust for an update I decided to change the PTO belts and that fixed the problem immediately. I guess there was just a little to much stratch to the belts and sometimes they would just slip on the spindles.

Jerry