PTO Troubleshooting- Mahindra 3016

Lucas.Streit · May 26, 2024

Hello All,

First Post here although I've lurked for advice many times. I've been looking all over forums and google to see if I can troubleshoot an issue I ran across last weekend and so far I haven't had any luck. I was Bush Hogging with my Mahindra 3016 and after about 5 hours the Mower started to bog down the engine when engaged, even when it wasn't in grass cutting. I immediately stopped mowing and started to troubleshoot.

So far what I can tell you is

I can turn the PTO shaft to the Bush hog by hand, no obvious binding. I did just change the fluids in the gear box on it this fall.
The blades on the bush hog spin freely and don't appear to be bound
On the tractor I have a lever that allows the PTO to turn and an Electric switch to engage the PTO. When I engage the electric switch there is a clicking/knocking sound to the rear of the tractor. Honestly I have no idea if this is new or if I am just noticing it since I am troubleshooting. This happens whether I engage the PTO lever or not. If I don't engage the lever it clicks but the PTO doesn't spin. If I engage the lever it clicks the same way but the PTO spins. Any idea if this is typical behavior?

I hooked the bush hog up again today and engaged the PTO and it seems to run just fine although I didn't mow all day with it.... Was something possibly getting too hot or is it possible the PTO shaft was binding somehow....Really don't want to take my tractor to get serviced if its not needed but I also don't want to cause further damage if something is wrong.

Any feedback is appreciated.

ptsg · May 26, 2024

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Those PTO noises don't necessarily concern me much. It's normal to you'll hear some noise on the PTO when running it unloaded as there is always some play on gears, splines, etc.

The PTO lever is there to allow you to put the PTO in Neutral so you can spin by hand when connecting the PTO shaft. This is great to have because these PTOs have a spring actuated brake that applies the PTO brake when the PTO is OFF.

Since you didn't find anything wrong with the mower, are you sure that it was the mowing causing the bogging and not a overheated engine trying to lock on you? Did you happen to take a peak at the temp gauge? How is the radiator condition? Good and clean? When mowing, some type of grass/brush can clog radiators in an hurry.