Pto driveshaft safety shield

[jhburke]

I agree with you. I know that a little grease is a lot cheaper than new ujoints. I fought the sheils and I finally got out my saw and cut a slot so that I could grease the joints.

 

[centex]

If your shield does not have the chains you are supposed to check that it rotates freely every time you use it. In fact the instructions for one of my implements that does not use the chains says to verify that each half rotates freely. Also one should not be touching the shield with the PTO engaged and in fact you should not be off the tractor with the PTO engaged. On the other hand the chains have all broken many times on the my implements that came with chains so you cannot rely on the chains to do anything. The ONLY safe way to deal with PTO shafts is to give them a wide berth.

 

[buck1]

Mine come without chains and spins freely. I'd never touch it though while it was running to see if I could stop it. That's an accident looking for a place to happen /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Darren]

When I've had chains pull off, I've used a small eyebolt and sandwiched two fender washers on both sides of a new hole in the guard. You may need to grind the end of the bolt off to minimize the piece sticking through the shield. The plastic ears never seem to last long.

If the plastic shields rotate and become separated at the belled end over the u-joint you can sometimes get a lot of stuff wrapped around the pto shaft. I like to prevent the shield from spinning for that reason. At 540 rpm you can get a fire going if you have a spinning shield, you get a debris buildup rubbing against something and you're not constantly paying attention

 

[normde2001]

My safety sticker says it should spin freely on the shaft. I would take that to mean it can turn or not, as long as it stops easily. If it's free on the shaft, anything that would press against it hard enough to catch fire would surely stop it from turning long before that.

 

[Mosey]

I had a post on this a while ago, which might be the one you're referring to:

"chains on the PTO shield - yes or no?"

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=safety&Number=137597&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1>http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=safety&Number=137597&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1</A>

My conclusion was to make sure I keep the shields greased, and every time I hook up the implement I'll make sure the shield turns freely. The most important thing is to never go anywhere near it when the PTO is engaged. For example, don’t even think about reaching in there an picking up that hat that fell off your head, etc. Shut off the PTO and let it wind down to a stop first. But, if someone should somehow accidentally fall into it, then the shield should keep them from getting spun around by the PTO shaft.

 

[normde2001]

Danny, I had not seen your post, but it kind of coincides with my original post in this thread. Incidentally, I could have greased the plastic zerks til the cows came home and still would not have gotten grease into the plastic bearings in the shield. It was a new shield and had never been greased. Me being a newbe at the time.....who knew?