Thank you for your concern and inputs.
The flip-up shield is maybe 12 gauge sheet metal held on by two ~1/4" bolts. It's u-shaped, when in its normal position it shields the top and both sides of the yoke. It does not lock into place by any means. I'm in trouble if that shield is going to protect me or the tractor from a separated driveshaft.
It isn't sturdy enough to stand on even. From the design, my guess is it is mostly intended to keep hands away from the rotating shaft.
I do have the safety chains at each end, a full pto driveshaft plastic shield end-to-end, and the shields at the implement end are in place. I do come to an idle and let the implement coast down before engaging/disengaging the pto, and it has a pto brake.
The problem that it causes is not greasing as much as the space it allows is so narrow, it makes connecting the shaft to the pto difficult. When it's flipped up, the side portions of the shield are tight right next to where my hands need to be when pulling back the lock ring, rotating for spline alignment and pushing onto the pto shaft. My fingers and hands aren't what they used to be strength-wise.
I can put it back on if it makes you all feel better, but I know who's gonna get cussed when I skin my knuckles. If you feel your ears burning someday, you'll know I was attaching a pto shaft. :laughing:
Cuss at us all you want Dave, it wouldn't be the first time.. :laughing:
Our old hands get skinned up too, even on a bigger tractor with a bigger shield.
The situation I described would break or pull apart the shaft safety chain links almost instantly.
They are only to keep the shields from turning.
In most cases the attachment end of the shaft is lower than the PTO end so the knuckles are cocked
and the tractor end will go crazy.
I had this happen on a roll baler and the loose end jammed in a lower link bar and made a mess. I like to think that the shield, similar to what you removed, which really got bent by the free shaft end kept the thing low and deflected it till it lodged instead of going through the back of my head or the aux fuel tank behind the seat.
The knuckles were not broken. I had not gotten the shaft on quite far enough for the lock pin to set. Going over
a ridge normally would have made the shaft get longer but since it was not locked properly it just pulled off.
The baler is pulled by the tractor drawbar so the tongue is below the shaft, so the shaft could only go down a little or sideways into the pinned out of the way lower link bars since the shield at the PTO diverted it enough.
So the only damage was a bent up shield, a crack and hole in the front plastic shaft shield and my ego..
Perhaps on a mower the front shaft would plow into the ground and only do possible damage to your mower gear box.
In any case, I am happy to fuss with the hinged shield. "Truth is stranger than fiction" and it all happened in an instant.
On a 3 pt implement I usually hook up the PTO shaft before swinging the lower arms in and attaching to the lift pins.
That gives me more leg and belly room to get to the PTO shaft on the tractor.
You mentioned having a lock on your PTO shaft and having to rotate the implement shaft for alignment. If you engage your PTO shaft, engine not running of course, you can rotate the shaft coming out of the tractor easier than trying to turn a gear box on the implement.
My newer CNH tractor doesn't have a shaft brake and I am glad. In fact the first thing the dealer said was these new ones don't have that PTO crazy brake.