Lengthen a pto shaft

[Slamfire]

When I bought my bushhog, I had to get an overrunning clutch to keep it from pushing the tractor. That made the pto shaft too long when the tractor started up a relatively steep hill. I shortened the sliding portion by an inch on each end, and it worked great! Now I've added one of Harbor Freight's quick hitches. Every other implement I have works well with it, but the hog had to be modified. Now the hitch pins are 4" further from the tractor and the hog's pto shaft is too short when it starts down the same hill it was too long on before. A new shaft is $80, can anyone think of a cheaper solution?

 

[sandman2234]

I have bought them on ebay a little cheaper than that, but not much for new.
Sometimes you can get away with just increasing one side of the shaft, if the length difference isn't much.
Why not buy a new shaft, and keep the old one as a shorter backup so this doesn't happen again?
David from jax

 

[DieselPower]

$80 sounds cheap to me. I'd just get it over with and buy the shaft.

 

[radman1]

Get the new shaft. No reasonable way to make shaft longer. Like sandman2234 said, you should be able to make it work with just a longer shaft on the tractor side. With the shaft attached to the tractor, be sure the 2 ends of the pto shaft slide past each other more than a few inches to give good stability to the shaft, especially with the mower raised.

 

[Doc_Bob]

I agree, buy a new shaft. Safer and cheaper in the long run.
Bob

 

[frank_f15]

i agree with every one , BUY a new shaft! SAFER

 

[elginfarm]

I had a similar situation. Buy another shaft.

 

[Fredex]

For $80, buy the new shaft unit. I had a shaft on an air mist/blast sprayer that turned up too short when I traded tractors. I had one end only lengthened (they cut the weld at the u-joint, inserted longer tube & re-welded). Cost $50. If I had done it correctly (both ends) it would have been around $100.

Lengthening one end only seems to work fine, but this is a low load situation; much lower load than a brush cutter.

 

[Slamfire]

The guy has a 32" shaft (shortest length) and a 38" for that price, since mine is 29", and I need 4" I guess the 32" will be long enough. So, following your advice I'll bite the bullet. The wood splitter repower project'll have to wait another month.

 

[Egon]

Morning Slamfire.

Chances are other solutions will cost as much as the new shaft. So,as the others have said, new shaft.