PTO engagement using a rotary mower

[arizona98tj]

I have a MF 1529 that has both a PTO lever as well as a PTO egagement switch on the dash. Today, I put a 5' King Kutter rotary mower on the tractor. Per the owner's manual, I engage the PTO lever and then push/turn the PTO switch. At an idle of 1200 RPM, the torque shock is enough to make me never want to turn it on again. Am I doing something wrong or is the acceptable norm now to just hammer the PTO attached implement? As a kid, my Dad would have smacked me into next week if I had done that to his PTO driven equipment.

 

[BKBoiss]

I don't have an answer but I do know what you mean. When I pull the switch for the PTO on my jd2520 it makes the whole mower twist and jump at a dead idle. The DX25 case I had before had a lever I could slowly engage and was very smooth.

 

[4570Man]

On my old tractor you could slowly let out on the clutch and it wouldn't jerk them as bad, but these electronic switches jerk them hard.

 

[oosik]

My PTO lever is like a slip clutch. Engagement is always soft, slow & smooth.

 

[TripleR]

It appears to be the new "norm" with the push button engagement systems, I prefer the old style lever. My favorite was on our Case CX80, you moved the lever from "OFF" to a mid gate, left it there a few seconds while it got the machine slowly spinning the to "ON" for a very soft startup.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I would engage the push button then see if I couldn't slowly engage the PTO lever. On my LS which is geared, I can feather in the PTO with the clutch after pulling up on the PTO engage electronic button. On my brother in laws New Holland 2310, you can feather in the PTO using the PTO lever. His Hydrostatic drive has no clutch to use as a feathering agent but the PTO lever can be feathered in. It took me a while driving it to find out that you could feather it by slipping the PTO clutch. Brother in law has been just popping it in and if above 1200 rpm it would usually shear the pin.
Like said, try to slowly engage the lever and see what happens.

 

[JWR]

Interesting. I have not used a tractor that had BOTH the lever and the electromechanical pull button for engaging the PTO. Seems strange why they would have both. In any event, using a MF2660 larger tractor and 7ft bushhog, (which has only the lever, no button) my practice is to lower engine rpm to idle or near it when I engage the PTO. This minimizes stress on everything involved and has no downside to doing it that way. This larger hog has a slip clutch and even doing it as I described there is always a squeek from the momentary slippage of the slip clutch when it suddenly engages. Same was ture on my JD4700 with a 6ft hog and slip clutch. I have 2 smaller ones , a 4' and 5' bush hog each one driven by a Kubota B2150. These have no slip clutch and lack a truly independent PTO (PTO is not running when the clutch is fully depressed.)I do the same thing with them, cut RPM at time of engagement and then ramp back up once the lurch is over with. Both these Kubota's require clutch depression in order to put the PTO in gear. None of them seem that bad to me. May be good idea to have an experienced 3rd party try yours & see if it appears 'normal' to them.

 

[SPYDERLK]

Interesting. I have not used a tractor that had BOTH the lever and the electromechanical pull button for engaging the PTO. Seems strange why they would have both. In any event, using a MF2660 larger tractor and 7ft bushhog, (which has only the lever, no button) my practice is to lower engine rpm to idle or near it when I engage the PTO. This minimizes stress on everything involved and has no downside to doing it that way. This larger hog has a slip clutch and even doing it as I described there is always a squeek from the momentary slippage of the slip clutch when it suddenly engages. Same was ture on my JD4700 with a 6ft hog and slip clutch. I have 2 smaller ones , a 4' and 5' bush hog each one driven by a Kubota B2150. These have no slip clutch and lack a truly independent PTO (PTO is not running when the clutch is fully depressed.)I do the same thing with them, cut RPM at time of engagement and then ramp back up once the lurch is over with. Both these Kubota's require clutch depression in order to put the PTO in gear. None of them seem that bad to me. May be good idea to have an experienced 3rd party try yours & see if it appears 'normal' to them.

Probly the lever engages the gears to the pto stub and the button slams the clutch shut. Slip engagement of the clutch probably wears it more. I have a manual clutch and let it in pretty quick at low rpm with light inertial loads. Starting heavy inertial loads are clutch wear that cant be avoided. I try to use the very lowest rpm that wont stall the engine.

 

[von-mil]

I don't know if it helps or not but what I try to do is manually, by hand, extend the blades to their straight-out cutting position before starting up the tractor. With the mower still on its dolly this is easy and safe to do. Combined with always engaging the PTO at the lowest possible RPM, this eliminates most of the bouncing that I used to get when starting the mower.

 

[CobyRupert]

I don't know if it helps or not but what I try to do is manually, by hand, extend the blades to their straight-out cutting position before starting up the tractor. With the mower still on its dolly this is easy and safe to do. Combined with always engaging the PTO at the lowest possible RPM, this eliminates most of the bouncing that I used to get when starting the mower.

Interesting.

If I had to guess, I'd say that helps with the blades being balanced so you don't get as much shuddering, but I'd say that with the blades fully extended it also (slightly) increases the shock and amount of torque required to bring the blades up to speed.