King cutter slip clutch repair

[Mallard1]

I borrowed my father in laws 6 foot king kutter gear driven tillar, model TG-72-YK. It has only been used a couple times and today I hooked it to a 65hp tractor to start breaking up a food plot we plan to start next year. After about one acre smoke started billowing out of the slip clutch so I will need to change it out next weekend.

Is it as simple as undoing the bolts and everything will slide apart then put in two new disc and tighten back up?

I was going pretty slow the tractor has 8 gears plus 2 ranges and I was in low range 3rd gear. The tiller was set to the next to lowest setting.

I guess I. Should raise it up then after done once lower it down and go a second time?

 

[cglaser104]

Did the slip clutch get properly set up and burned off in the first place? There is a coating on the clutches that should have been burned off when first purchased intentionally.

Did something get bound up in the tines that locked up the rotation and burnt out the clutches already? I have a 10+ year old KK gear drive tiller that's in it's original plates still with a long way to go before needing replacement. Beyond that it is just a couple replacement friction plates.

 

[Fallon]

I smoked the clutch on my 5' KK tiller. Cooled it down, tightened up the bolts a half turn & carried on. I assume I hadn't tightened things up properly when I did the spring loosening & cleaning on the clutch.

I got things toasty & a little smokey, but didn't destroy the clutch plate. A lot of your path forward will be how much of the clutch material you burned up.

Doing 2 half passes or going slower will use less HP. Putting less HP through that clutch will make it last longer if its marginal for the job.

 

[Mallard1]

Thanks for the help, I just assumed when a bunch of smoke came out they would have to be changed. I will take a closer look this Friday. I doubt any adjustments were ever made on this. It is probably set as it came from the factory. There was a pretty good ball of grass wrapped on the shaft between the end tine and the side, I assume that extra friction didn稚 help at all.

 

[Fallon]

You need to loosen up all the spring bolts & let the clutch slip anually as a maintnance item.

Last year I did that I couldnt get it to slip. Jammed a 2x4 in the tines & fired it up at idle. The tines cut 75% through powered by nothing but rust holding the clutches together. Finally freed up with a bang. Tightened it up a hair to polish the plates a bit & ran it like that slipping fir a second or 3. Then properly tightened it up.

If you dont free it up every spring it's probably rusted tight & wont slip when needed. Although if you smoked it, it obviously did its job slipping before damaging something.