A PTO puzzle. Wanna try and guess it?

[TMcD_in_MI]

We got hammered a little here in Michigan on Monday with snow and wind. I had been moving earlier light snow with my John Deere 4310 FEL and bucket, but figured I'd better get the front blower mounted Sunday to be ready for the big blast. Off with the FEL, on with the freshly greased blower, pull the mid PTO switch, then the rear PTO switch, and ... nothing. No mid PTO rotation at all. The rear PTO and everything else worked fine.

I won't bore you (more) with the next few hours I spent Sunday with the shop manual and a voltmeter, or Monday morning after the storm hit, still trying to figure out the problem. I finally just gave up and put the FEL back on.

Trying to push eight to ten inches (plus drifts) of wet snow from 800 feet of already slippery driveway with a five foot bucket turns out to be not that much fun. An hour or so of it and I'd had enough, leaving the driveway pretty passable, but not very wide and kind of ugly.

With new and desperate energy, I went back into the garage, and, with just a pair of wires, I finally diagnosed the problem. Then I took the two wires back off, put a connector back together and the mid PTO worked like a charm. The driveway looks pretty spiffy now.

So, does anybody want to guess what was wrong with my mid PTO? It wasn't anything very sophisticated.

Tom

 

[FastPauly]

Sounds like an electrical connector was partially unplugged

 

[orlo]

I'm betting a bad seat switch.....

 

[cast_and_blast]

I'll guess that it was the PTO selector lever being in the wrong position or between positions.

Scott

 

[TMcD_in_MI]

Fast Pauly - A very good guess, but not what happened in this case.

Orlo - Also a very good guess, but also not what happened.

Scott - That would be a very good guess, but the 4310 doesn't happen to have a selector lever, just two switches. You can run just the rear PTO or you can run the rear and the mid PTO at the same time.

You guys are pretty smart. I'll leave this unanswered for a while to see if more guesses pop up.

Tom

 

[jgrreed]

It was a safety switch that's somehow linked to your seat......

Speaking of which, I'm gonna try and rig up a seat warmer on my open station 4720, any ideas or thought would be appreciated, and I'll share my experiences too!!

Here's a website that looks good:

Seat Heater for Cars and Trucks from HeatedSeatKits.com

-Jer.

 

[jgrreed]

Just saw Orlo's guess and your response......duuuhhhhhh......

Oh ****.....I was thinkin' I was pretty smart there for a second!!!

-Jer.

 

[jimgerken]

I will guess "operator error". That's the answer everytime.

 

[Ductape]

Was it the loose nut behind the wheel??

 

[RollTideRam]

Did you have the mid pto hooked up? JC