Lots of good advice about the shaft cutting, certainly. Heed it. Best case if you do it wrong, you ruin a shaft. Worst case, you ruin your tractor, or your life. Measure twice, cut once, measure twice again, and cut again as necessary. Just make sure that shaft isn't too long or too short. It's a pretty fine line.
Lifting the
chipper isn't a problem, because the shaft will get longer and at worst, come apart at the slip-joint. If you cut it too long, you'll push your PTO shaft right into the differential housing when you lower the
chipper. You should be just able to pull the yoke off the PTO shaft with the
chipper lowered so that the shaft at it's at it's straightest angle. I assume you're putting it on the LK-30. I have NO CLUE how big/high that tractor is or how far the PTO shaft is from the 3PH lift points. However, sitting flat on the ground behind my LX2610SU with oversize tires, the centerline of the
chipper shaft is still nearly 4 inches higher than my PTO shaft, so I'm not likely to ever have a situation where my driveshaft is perfectly horizontal. I don't think the lift arms will let it lower enough for that. I don't know how much difference there is in the elevations and footprint of the 46, either.
Make sure you cut equal amounts off the inner and outer sleeves of the shaft. That's probably the most important point because cutting one sleeve won't stop the other from bottoming out and creating a BIG problem. I cut the plastic sleeve and steel shafts separately. The sleeve comes off very easily. The instructions that came with it are very good. If you cut the shaft for using the tractor with a Quick Hitch, don't ever use it without the Quick Hitch. A quick hitch adds about 4 inches to the distance of the implement to the PTO shaft. If you cut it without the quick hitch, the shaft may come apart when you lift the
chipper to full height. While inconvenient, if you're following the rules, the PTO will be disengaged before you lift the
chipper, and NEVER engaged unless the
chipper is sitting on the ground. It's a lot more than inconvenient if you separate that shaft with it turning and will likely make a lot of noise and do a lot of damage. Wrap the shaft with something like paper or foam packing sheet while cutting to keep the metal flakes/dust off the shaft, especially the inner shaft. If you have an angle grinder, get a decent cut-off wheel and cut it with that. You'll get a more precise cut. Take time to de-bur the cuts and file them clean so that you don't get excessive wear from sharp corners. A Dremel tool with a sanding drum does this very well. Make sure you put plenty grease on the inner sleeve before reassembling the shaft. If you're not slinging grease off a driveshaft when you first start using it, it's too dry. Use a good axle grease for a shaft, not high pressure grease. Those parts are spinning fast and rubbing. Thick tacky grease may only cause the shaft to fail earlier, especially the needle bearings in the u-joints.
If you've never worked around PTO driven equipment, be safe. Tractor off, key in your pocket, PTO selector in neutral/off, brakes locked. Sorta like getting hit by lightning, you probably won't get a second chance to tell about the first time you didn't follow the rules. Tractors are dangerous. That's what makes them useful.
