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PTO Shaft Question

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YTSupport

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I'm so busy right now with other things, I just don't have time to research this.

I have my son's Oliver 1950FWA and an 8 inch hydraulic feed wood chipper with a 200 pound flywheel on it (rated for 100HP). Both substantial pieces. The PTO shaft would have to be cut down to 4 inches on both sides of the slip shafts just to barely fit if I put an overrunning coupler on it, there are only 5 inches left between u-joints. If I skip the coupler, I can get another 8 inches and probably have 12 inch slip shafts left when I cut it down (which still would leave no clearance to mount it, it would have to be mounted as the chipper is hitched, which violates every safety rule I can think of, though I might be able mount it at the highest lift point). I'm really uncomfortable with such a short shaft when it's carrying possibly 100HP, and that may just be a superstitious attitude. It shouldn't bind as it's pretty much a level run from tractor to chipper when in operation.

What is the shortest you'd cut a shaft down to on a 100HP tractor in a heavy load application? I'm talking the contact length of the slip section only, not counting the u-joints. Would you skip the coupler in the application?

Not a very good photo, but this is how short the span ends up being, even with that monster of a 3-point on the Oliver. The distance groove to groove between the tractor and chipper shafts is 22.5 inches, the U-joints eat most of that up.


mvphoto26923.jpg
 
Leave the shaft alone and extend the arms on the chipper to whatever length works. A 10 or 12" extension on the chipper arms will give you all the room you need
 
I thought about that. One of the reasons the design is so tight is they probably wanted to make it so smaller tractors could handle the weight of the thing by not hanging it out so far. The oliver doesn't even notice it, so that would work fine. Just have to bite the bullet and take the time to weld up new connections. I've got the steel.

Good approach, I'd be more comfortable with it that way.
 
Take a 1 inch by 2.5 inch by 24" (or so) bar and bolt it to the draw bar as an extension. Cheap easy strong. Jim
 
Don?t cut the PTO shaft because if you get it to short when it?s the perfect length when straight back from the PTO it?ll be way too short when you lower or raise the three point and the PTO shaft will come apart.
I have the same problem and I just built an extension for the hitch on the chipper to move it back.
 
We bought a 8? Woodmaxx chipper (mechanical feed not
hyd). The assembly manual is very good and has an
excellent section on sizing & setting up PTO shafts. The
manual is PDF and on-line. Follow the link below and scroll
down right side of the page until you see ?nnalert
manual? in a picture block. Hope this helps.
Woodmaxx
 
The Woodmaxx hitch ends can be adjusted for length by pulling 3 pins & sliding the ends in/out. I don?t know how your chipper is built, though.
 
FWIW... I just posted two replies using Classic view but when I switch to Modern view only the second reply appears.
 

Several ideas here that are good. It is independent but I can't afford to destroy his PTO by having it driven by the chipper, even though it won't drive the tractor. Would be extremely expensive to repair. That was the thinking around the coupler.

The general consensus is to move it back. The layout of the thing doesn't lend itself to doing this easily, but the one idea about a long drawbar put me onto the thought of putting stabilizers on the side and just leaving it free of the tractor in operation, or maybe hook it to the drawbar while in use, backed off a bit, then a standard PTO shaft would be fine. I'd be a bit concerned about using it without stabilizers or a connection to the tractor, but that's easier to put together than fabricating a second outboard hitch. Still might do that though.

That comment on the Woodmaxx got me to looking. They sell a shaft for their units that is as short I need, even with a coupler on it. Ours are all much longer. But I'm warming up to the idea of operating it when not hooked up to the 3-point. I'll just have to come up with some brackets to attach it to the drawbar when using it.

Whatever the case, looks like I won't be using it this weekend.
 
I think it has to do with the character set on your phone. Soon as I finish getting it so we can charge tax, I was going to work on that. Phones are generating characters that look like binary to the old software. They aren't, their just a modern character set for apostrophes and quotes, but there are some problems when moving them between the views. I think I can figure it out, but haven't got to that yet. I'll check your other reply on Classic.
 
On a 1950 the pto clutch and brake are manually applied. Oliver didn't have hydraulic activated pto till the 55 series. So you can disengage the clutch and not apply the brake by not pushing the lever completely back to the brake position. Let it freewheel to a stop then push the lever to the brake position. You wouldn't damage anything.
 
Copy of post below - On a 1950 the pto clutch and brake are manually applied. Oliver didn't have hydraulic activated pto till the 55 series. So you can disengage the clutch and not apply the brake by not pushing the lever completely back to the brake position. Let it freewheel to a stop then push the lever to the brake position. You wouldn't damage anything.
 
That's an interesting point. No coupler means I could use the longer 25 inch shaft.

I did go up and take a look at the unit. His tractor loader mounts extend all the way back almost to the end of the 3-point arms. It would be easy to bolt a couple of L-brackets on there when we're running it detached from the tractor. Not even sure that's necessary though, I haven't run this thing even though I've had it for years. It may be heavy enough that it won't walk.
 
I just didn't want to put the wear on his PTO brake, it's a heavy flywheel, but if it can freewheel as 3000 suggests, then it doesn't need a coupler even for that. I don't know his tractor that well.
 
This is what I did mine. You can see the original yellow threepoint On top of the new hitch. The PTO shaft can?t be any shorter or it?ll pull a part in the down position like it?s parked now.

cvphoto2947.jpg
 
Our tired 3000 grunts a little picking up the 900 lb chipper out
at the ends of the lift arms (the arms have Pat?s Hitch quick
connects so there?s 3+ more inches plus the chipper arms are
extended, too).

I?d had same thought as you, considering mounting chipper on
trailer axles or some short running gear. Another round to it
maybe project.

Our 3000 free wheels ok when I shut PTO off. But I follow
Woodmaxx directions and ease PTO on in idle. I also don?t
reengage until completely dead spinning.
 
Plenty of good ideas here. I suppose it will come down to how much scrap steel I have laying around which way to go. I may have a set of old sprinkler system axles that would work If I want to put it on wheels, but probably either extending the mount points like some have done, or just setting it on the ground with a brace to the tractor would do the trick. A brace is a bit more hassle when setting up, but all my experience with chippers says, you bring everything to it before you turn it on, or you just waste fuel. And you have to have the chip trailer set in one position anyway. Just saying a somewhat semi-stationary set up, won't be that big of a deal.

We'll fire it up just free standing and try out the PTO brake, make sure it does freewheel, and if so, just forego the coupler.

Lot of good ideas. Thanks for the interest.
 
The PTO on your tractor is a multi plate dry clutch. If you just pull it back past the over center point, but do not pull it all the way back to the latch point you will not engage the brake portion of the clutch. Idle the machine down with the
PTO engaged to use the engine as a brake, then do as I've outlined above and do not pull it back to latched until it has stopped rotating.
 
Thanks for that. It's not mine, it's my son's, or I'd know more about it. Seems like the right machine for this duty though.
 
I'm guessing we have the same chipper as you. We had to cut probably cut over 4 inches off in total. There is still enough there for the shaft. I would recommend the the over run clutch and the stabilizer bars help out a lot but aren't needed (we pulled off the pto shaft each time we moved the chipper). We ran the chipper on our Ford 6610 and the chipper didn't even make the tractor work. For the last week we ran the chipper on our Ford 3000 and that made the tractor work a lot.
 
I was going to try it out with my D14, but I got to looking at it and decided that probably wouldn't be a good idea. It was a lot of weight for a 4000 pound tractor and it would be way underpowered. Supposedly the chipper can run at 40 HP, but that might be wishful thinking. We'll be feeding very soft hardwoods in, red maple and alder, tall and spindly, so the Oliver should be able to handle it. We have very few true hardwoods around here, and I imagine those would give some trouble. What I have been concerned about is the lengths, they can be 50 or 60 foot tall and 5 or 6 inches diameter. Even a small tree with that length can have a lot of leverage to move the chipper around. That's why I think some stabilization will be necessary.
 
The tractor will chip the wood just fine. Just don’t go too fast because the belts for the flywheel will stop and you might kill the part that joints the pto shaft to the hydraulic pump. We ended up cutting a little over a foot off the pto so it didn’t belt the pto shaft on the chipper. I recommend the over run clutch so you don’t stop the chipper immediately and twist parts on the tractor or chipper
 
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