Tight pto won't extend

[Donman]

I bought a 4 ft.Woods finish mower today at auction. It all looked good, hardly any rust, and everything turned without bad noises. It has belt drive - no gearbox. When I got it home and tried to hook it up and try it out, the pto shaft would not extend - even a little bit. I removed the shaft at the pully and tried every thing I could think of to get the shaft to slide out with no luck. It looks like a square solid shaft that slides into a square tube ( quite thin I thought). There is not much to hook on to to pull with - only U-joints. The whole assembly is so tight and short that the shields can't retract enough to remove the U-joints. I gave up temporarily and swapped shafts with my snow blower - just to try the mower out. It cuts and mows beautifully by the way! But now I think I need some ideas on how to fix the pto shaft. Anybody?
Donman

 

[MtnViewRanch]

WD40 and a hammer. Sounds like water got in the slip joint and is rusted up.

Brian

 

[Pooh_Bear]

I have been having the same problem with my finish mower.
I got some chain, and went down behind the house to a tree.
I backed up to the tree and chained the finish mower to the tree.
Then I unhooked the drag links and top links, but left the PTO shaft hooked up.
Then I got on the tractor and slowly pulled forward about 6 inches,
then backward about 6 inches, then back and forth about 30 times.
I hooked the mower back up to the tractor and unchained it from the tree.
Drove it back up to the house. Now the shaft moves with some effort.
I need to pull it apart and clean and grease both shaft halves.
But for now the situation at least looks promising.

Pooh Bear

 

[wushaw]

It is rusted together. Penetraint oil, chain tied to tree the other to tractor works too but be carefull.

 

[jbrumberg]

Donman:
I have secured the attachment to a fixed object (i.e. tree) and used my 4X4 pickup with a fabric towstrap wrapped through the U-joint with good results. Penetrating oil and a hand sledgehammer help. Be careful! Jay

 

[SPYDERLK]

WD40 and a hammer. Sounds like water got in the slip joint and is rusted up.

Brian

Make sure you dont transmit hammer blows thru u joint bearings.
Larry

 

[Birdman253]

The square shaft is galded to the square tube. Probably as a result of not being greased, and being run dry. The best way to get them free is to remove the assembly from the mower, and the tractor. Hook one end to a "deadman" such as a tree, or strong post with a chain. Attach the other to another "deadman" such as the drawbar of your tractor, with a come-along.

Start applying pressure pulling with the come-along. When the assembly is stretched tight, you can strike both sides of the female tube simultaneously with two hammers. Often this shock will break them free. If you have shields on the shafts, they will be in the way, and I have to warn you, I have had to sacrifice the shields more than once in this situation.

If constant pressure, with shocking blows does not break it loose, then the next step is to keep the pressure on, as tight as you can pull with the come-along, and then heat the female side of the union with a torch. As it expands, the galded portion will often break free.

After you get them apart, if you are able to, you need to use a hand grinder to dress all sides of the square shaft. Check the inside of the female port, since it will probably be rough also. If so, a replacement female end can be welded into the tube by a welding shop. If the female side is ok, dress the male, and grease it thoroughly, reassemble, and get back to work.

Hope this helps.

 

[BobReeves]

Good thread...

My flail mower's PTO shaft is in pretty good shape, slides easily enough but if I keep it greased like everyone is recommending it will air lock and I can't get it to move when I am hooking it up. Like trying to pull a bicycle pump with the inlet plugged. My temporary solution was to clean off the grease and lightly oil the shaft. This helped as the oil will allow air to enter the shaft easier than grease..

Thought about drilling a small hole in the end but am afraid I might weaken the shaft. The problem with using oil is it will go away fairly quickly and if I forget to maintain it I may end up with the same problem as the poster that started this thread. So drill the hole or not?

 

[schmism]

level 1
penitrating oil and tension on it (methods mentioned above)

level 2
add tapping on the saft with a hammer while doing 1

level 3
add heat to outside (female) version while doing 2 and 1


step 4

cut u-joints off and weld on new sliding tube sections...

 

[Soundguy]

I had the same thing on a cone seeder, and on a batwing i bought.

In each case i removed the pto shaft, and put it under some tension with a chain and come along, and then put alot of pb blaster down the open end.

Check to see if the 'cuffs' on your shield will detach and slide back.

One one old shaft, i had to cut the plastic shield off so i could use 2 brass hammers opposite of each other and give 'raps' across from each other all downt he sides, while setting under pressure. A couple days of this and all of them came loose.. though i had to repalce a sleave.. etc.

Soundguy