Posthole Digger Question on PTO shaft for PHD.

garwac8 · Feb 20, 2010

Been lurking her for a while but this is my first post. Picked up this old Continental post hole digger a week ago and am trying to get it cleaned up and ready to use. I would like to replace the old PTO shaft on it with a new one that has a guard if possible. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it off from the gear box. I have removed the shear bolt and the cotter pin and tried banging it off with a hammer. The shaft moves about a 1/2 inch and then stops completely. I tried loosening the two nuts on the shaft and got them off but I still could not spin the PTO shaft off. Hopefully someone here has some experience with this. I will be contacting AG Meier on Monday as well hoping they may have some paperwork for this unit as well. Thanks in advance for any help I get.

BeezFun · Feb 20, 2010

I would guess the hole where the shear bolt goes through is boogered up, or some little piece of something is stuck in there. Last resort is to hook the PHD to the tractor and start to drill a hole. That spins the thing right off. You can probably put a pipe wrench on the bit and on the PTO yoke and spin it off that way. Might need a crowbar wedged in there to help it off, but if you say it moves about 1/2" it can't be frozen.

kebo · Feb 20, 2010

Maybe it needs some type of gear puller tool to pull it off?? Have you tried heating it with a torch and then see if a hammer will knock it off? A last resort would be to try and carefully grind though it lengthwise and see if you could get it off that way, assuming you don't care about that end of the pto shaft.

I'm thinking that if pto shaft has a lot of slop in the way it fits onto the input shaft it might possibly have been run enough that a wear groove could have formed near the end of the input shaft, thus preventing the pto shaft from sliding right off. It sure looks like it should just pull right off of the input shaft though. Good luck, and let us know how you get it off.

ModMech · Feb 20, 2010

I would venture a guess that you will need to remove the u-joint and then use an "H" puller inserted thru the yolk to force it off.

The fact that it moves some indicates to me that it is not a threaded connection and that most likely one of the bolt holes has a burr on it that is stopping the yolk from comming off.

RoyJackson · Feb 20, 2010

ModMech said:
I would venture a guess that you will need to remove the u-joint and then use an "H" puller inserted thru the yolk to force it off.

Although I think the yoke should come off when you pull the shear pin and cotter key (which should be locking the yoke in the PTO stub groove, the way it looks), ModMech has the right idea to pull the U-joint. You might see a snap ring or other type retainer inside the end of the yoke.
Before you do anything too destructive, try giving Beltec Industries a call. Looks like Beltec may have made that digger.

garwac8 · Feb 21, 2010

Alright, got the U-joint off and didn't see any kind of retaining ring on the shaft so I put a puller on and was able to get the end of the shaft off after some cranking. Thanks for the help, I just didn't want to damage the shaft going into the gearbox. Now all I have to do is find the proper PTO shaft and I'm ready to dig some holes.

ModMech · Feb 21, 2010

GREAT!

I am continually reminded and amazed at how a little force applied in just the right direction will remove that which appears stuck for ever. The forcing screw is a wonder of engineering.