Why it's CRITICAL to Check PTO Length on New Implements (Failure to do so may cost $$$)

Описание: If you buy a new implement, you should be able to hook it on the tractor and use it, right? NOT NECESSARILY! The company that built the attachment doesn't know how long to make the power take off to fit your particular tractor. It's clear if you read the owner's manual that you may have to shorten the length of the PTO before using the implement.

If the shaft is too long, some really bad failures can occur, either with the implement or the tractor. Just because all of the specs indicate that a tiller, brush hog or finish mower will work with a particular tractor, it's still your responsibility to check the length of the PTO shaft before operating. Even farmers, who have been around equipment all of their life don't always realize that a PTO shaft that just barely wedges on to the tractor may have needed to be shortened, and the results of failing to do so won't be covered under warranty.

I was a territory sales manager for AGCO Corporation for ten years, and we sold the New Idea brand of disc mowers. For about a decade, those machines could be uncrated and sent to the field without ever doing anything to the PTO shaft but greasing it. Then, one year we sold two machines that had ugly failures almost immediately and we were surprised to find out that the company had changed suppliers of PTO shafts, and the new ones were just a little bit longer than the old ones, and on certain tractors, if you hit a bump, everything was put in a bind. In those cases, everything behind the PTO would get shoved back, driving a big drive pulley into a shield and doing a lot of damage. We started chopping off about four inches of PTO before delivery and the problem went away.

When I first saw the flail mower in the video I suspected the PTO shaft was too long. The cutter is designed to work on a wide range of tractor sizes, and when putting it on a large compact, like what we're trying to do in the video, there was a problem. I could have extended the lower link arms on the tractor slightly and made it fit, but raising it up or hitting a bump would have created a disastrous situation and probably broken the PTO shaft off the tractor. I measured the distance from the PTO stub shaft of the tractor to the gearbox shaft and determined I could take about 4 1/2 inches off the PTO shaft and have plenty of clearance to hook up and so that's what I did.

I know I could have cut the PTO myself, with a hacksaw or power tools, but I never like the jagged cuts I make, I wanted it to be clean, so I took it to S & H Farm Supply, the dealership where I used to work, and had them cut it off for me on their band saw. It took about twenty minutes and the finished result looked "factory".

In a perfect world, the dealer would tell you, when he's selling you a PTO-powered implement, to check the length of the shaft before operating. Since situations like the one in the video are fairly rare, that doesn't always happen. The bottom line is, either have new implements fitted to the tractor when purchasing, or closely follow the owner's manual recommendation for adjusting PTO shaft length before operating any new equipment. It can possibly avoid a lot of grief later on.

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