Broke mower. Could use your opinion

[JSinMO]

This time of year for me is a sunup to sunset work day. One of the things I wanted to get done is mowing off some of the draws that I’m not cutting hay on. I hooked up the 2N to the brush cutter and made a couple of passes then I heard a bang back to the shop I go.

I assessed the damage and found the female end of the PTO shaft had broke.

I dug around in my stash of pieces and parts but I don’t have one. So the question is if I can line it up straight then why can’t I just weld it back together?

I figure it’s already broke the worst that can happen is it will break again. What does the group think?

[Spike188]

I am not a fan of welded PTO shafts. A memory as a 5 year is of a weld shaft breaking and hitting our neighbour in the head. An image of the tractor and mower flipped on a creek bank is still etched in my mind.

[DavidBarkey]

First off , It appears to have been rubbing on something and worn to the point of breaking . That must be addressed first . Is the shaft not a standard piece you can buy ? I am all for fixing everything , but in this case I would go new if possible . If not possible , than sleeve it so if it breaks again it cannot flail around and hurt anyone or damage anything . No offence , but if welded have a profession welded do it . This not something for a novice .

[propane1]

I’m all for fixing things. But in this case the safest thing to do is buy a new one. Or better yet a good looking used one. I kinda doubt a professional welding shop would weld it. Liabilities if it broke and hurt someone.

Noel

[Harry]

I can only speak for myself being a welder most of my working career, I would weld it. David had a great suggestion of sleeving the pto shaft. Harry

[Spike188]

Any of the older tractors that do not have a live power takeoff are a safety issue if an overrun clutch is not added. A live pto is driven directly off of the engine through a separate clutch. When the tractor is brought to a stop the pto will continue running until the pto clutch is disengaged.

On the older tractors the pto is driven off of the transmission. When forward or reverse motion stops so does the PTO. When mowing on a hill and rollback occurs, the PTO changes rotation direction in a millisecond. I have seen PTO output shafts on these old setups twist inside the transmission because of rollback. If an over run clutch is add to the PTO shaft the mower will coast to a stop, saving stress on the gearbox, pto shaft, and output shaft.

[RoamingGnome]

Definitely something you want fixed right the first time... perhaps a local welding shop would cut the ends off and replace the entire tube?

[JSinMO]

I appreciate your thoughts fellas! One of the great things about this place, you can ask a question or throw out an idea and get some good feedback! after reading your comments and sleeping on it, I’m not going to attempt to repair the shaft. Just too dangerous.
@DavidBarkey no offense taken, I appreciate your honesty. I do think it could be repaired but it would have to be someone with much more skill than me. Here again I wish I lived closer to Harry! I’m sure I could get someone around here to fix it but it’s probably more cost effective and faster to just find another one and put it on.

This is the mower I bought at auction land put the blades on last year. After looking at it today it appears to me it’s been rubbing long before I bought it. I finished it off for sure.
Here is the reason why.

If you look at the picture, with the deck raised the PTO angle is too flat and rubs the mower deck. I should have had the deck adjusted better so that wouldn’t happen. Very stupid oversight on my part. However that shaft was damaged and thin before I got it. Had this not happened now who knows. I might have been out mowing and had the thing exploded on me. So I take it as a silver lining it broke the way it did.

@Spike188 Your absolutely right about the old stuff not having live PTO or hydraulics. I’ve been in a couple of sticky situations because of it. Luckily no harm done to me or the tractors. The only one I have with live power is my Case 830. I added a PTO clutch to all the other ones. It’s good piece of mind for sure. As you said the PTO is driving off the transmission in the old stuff. With out the clutch added there are a lot of times you can’t take the transmission out of gear until the PTO winds down.

Thank you all again I really appreciate it!

[propane1]

In order for me to use my Ferguson with the mower deck, when I want to stop to change direction, if I press the clutch in and at the very same time, take the pto out of gear, it works fine and I don’t get things fetched up. A lot of pressure in the transmission if you just put in the clutch and wait for the tractor to stop. And then very hard to get out of gear.


Noel

[Toolslinger]

Late to the party again... I tell ya, this work thing really gets in the way of my hobbies.

I'm glad you're just going to replace it. There will be some sticker shock involved in a new one, but that's way better than the potentials from a bad shaft.

Question on your mower setup.
It appears the top link position on the mower side is rigid/fixed in place by the lower bolt. I believe that should be a free swinging location to allow the mower to have a little freedom of movement to follow the ground.
The Ford rotary we used for years (and I just rehabed, but still haven't used) is missing the free swinging element. Having it rigid as a result always made it miserable on our hilly terrain. You'd basically loose steering cresting a hill since the N is so light up front.
Adding that freedom of movement will complicate the initial PTO setup a little since you need to accomodate that length change when trimming the new PTO to length. On the plus side, rotary mowers have longer PTO's so you have a little more margin of error to play with than when I did it for my flail. I was way beyond "measure twice, cut once"... More like measure 15 or 20 times, and still have doubts.