I hate my PTO

[oosik]

I sold my snow blower when I got the larger tractor. I can plow the berms with the larger tractor - no need to blow them.

However - I do have a Wallenstein PTO driven chipper. The PTO shaft is the button type. There are the easy times and then there are the other times.

Holding the shaft up with a bungee cord helps. I can tip the PTO shield UP when making connection - that helps.

I've found that keeping the PTO shaft in the spare bedroom, where it's warm, helps also. Cold grease does not move/slide easily.

 

[pmsmechanic]

With today's modern machining and processing capabilities, I still can't quite figure out why tractor manufacturers won't just simply bevel each spline on the PTO shaft to help hook the PTO shaft. Pretty much what JD uses on their Auto connect decks.

Made a quick 3D drawing. Hopefully what I'm trying to say comes through. While I don't really have any problems connecting the PTO shaft, I can understand that for some can be tricky. Specially with so much in the way.


View attachment 669184

Actually a bit of careful grinding with an angle grinder would give an adequate bevel too.

 

[forestcreature1]

So here's another idea. Forget about pulling the collar back until you have the pto shaft lined up and on the splines. You can slide the shaft onto the tractor pto shaft about an inch before you need to pull the collar back to release the balls. I also lift the three point up enough so that I can rotate the implement pto shaft to line up the splines. It's a lot easier than trying to rotate the pto on the tractor.

That is my method [and turning the tractor-end shaft to line up first too].

 

[pmsmechanic]

I sold my snow blower when I got the larger tractor. I can plow the berms with the larger tractor - no need to blow them.

However - I do have a Wallenstein PTO driven chipper. The PTO shaft is the button type. There are the easy times and then there are the other times.

Holding the shaft up with a bungee cord helps. I can tip the PTO shield UP when making connection - that helps.

I've found that keeping the PTO shaft in the spare bedroom, where it's warm, helps also. Cold grease does not move/slide easily.

I washed all the grease off of the tubs of my rototiller pto shaft and I just use WD-40 on the 2 tubes. It works quite well actually and I don't have to fight with grease hardening between the tubes because of dirt.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I washed all the grease off of the tubs of my rototiller pto shaft and I just use WD-40 on the 2 tubes. It works quite well actually and I don't have to fight with grease hardening between the tubes because of dirt.

That's another thing I've been doing for years and years...

Save the grease for grease zerks!!

SR

 

[shooterdon]

Using grease makes no sense to me either. It will pick up dirt and is rather "tacky" in the winter (gets down below 0* quite often).

I spray mine with PB blaster or WD40.

 

[ovrszd]

One of my frustrations about getting old is that I get mentally blocked. Struggling to do something for more than one minute is an example. Regardless of task. It's actually the definition of "insanity". Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

So the moment something gets frustrating I step back and regroup. Realizing the current method is NOT working.

Last time I hitched up my 15ft batwing I found myself in this situation. The PTO shaft has a heavy CV joint at the tractor end. Trying to lift the PTO shaft and align the splines (21 spline). Wasn't happening. Struggled for about 10 seconds. Mentally stepped back. Oh,,,, dummy,,,, the tractor is running so it's PTO brake is holding the shaft from turning even slightly to align the splines. Laughed at myself all the way around to the ignition key to shut it off. Shaft went right on. Embarrassing.

I don't have any Winter uses for PTO. I grease the tractor shafts and the implement coupler splines. I always have a PTO shaft condom on the tractors when not in use.

I slip the PTO shaft onto the tractor shaft until the release mechanism prevents it from going on further. Then I activate the release and push it the rest of the way on. Never do both at once.

I prefer the simplicity of the push button style. But I don't mind the slip collar. I keep all of them properly lubed.

I remove the heavy shaft on my batwing and store it in the machine shed thru Winter. Properly lubed of course.

 

[LouNY]

The push button driveline yokes are much better. Those **** slide collar yokes suck. If you take your driveline to a good dealer they can order a push button yoke and replace the slide collar yoke. Cost should not be too bad either. I have never met anyone who preferred the collar style yokes. The third option would to find a safety lock style yoke, its collar slides back and locks back. When you slide it on the pto the collar automatically releases and locks. However those are normally only found on the big drivelines.

Hooking up the round baler drivelines with a slide collar yoke is the worst, they weigh about 70 lbs and your trying to pull the #$%^ collar back while wrestling it into place. This weekend I did silage. Was using two wagons, one with a pin style yoke and one with a slide collar yoke. The pin style yoke was much nicer to use, only had to hook and unhook wagons 17 times that day. Was glad the drivelines were small.

It is corn silage time of year already,
the drought this summer has really hurt our yields.
We are down over a third.

 

[ovrszd]

It is corn silage time of year already,
the drought this summer has really hurt our yields.
We are down over a third.

We have good corn yields here this year. Silage cutting is minimal around here this time.

 

[CobyRupert]

It is corn silage time of year already,
the drought this summer has really hurt our yields.
We are down over a third.

Further up the (Washington County NY) road: Corn height seems to be all over the place here, from field to field. Only have seen one farmer here that has started chopping a few days ago, he’s always early. Then again, his cows have never seen a blade of grass in a pasture, or a bale of hay. Only the silage and corn they get in the feed lot, err..I mean free stall.