pto drive shaft

jwrivendell

New member
Hi ... I'm in a pickle here. I own an E350 - DI and just bought a tiller. The drive shaft is too long. I know that I need to shorten it. My problem is that the drive shaft I have is 27 1/2 inches and the length I need is about 19 inches. I need to cut close to 9 inches off this thing. That makes for pretty darn short drive shaft. Can this be done? I mean it really is going to leave a small section of the plastic cover and a couple of inches longer of the actual shaft itself.

Can I get a bracket that will mount where the lift pins are on the tiller and push the mounting point further out thus allowing me to have a longer drive line? Can I get longer lift arms? Or do I just cut the thing that short?

Any advice would be appreciated.

- JW
 

bczoom

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JW,

Welcome to the forum.

I've cut them off when needed. Option B is to go to Tractor Supply or whatever tractor store you have around you and get a new shaft of the correct length.
 

jwrivendell

New member
BCzoom - Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm OK with cutting the one I have but I'm concerned that cutting it as short as I need to cut is safe/wise to do. I'm going off recollection here but I would be cutting the plastic cover almost down to just an inch or so remaining and the actual shaft might be 3 inches or so. It might be a little more than that but if so not much.

It may be perfectly fine to cut it this much but it lead me to wonder if there was a way to gain some extra room by possible mounting a bracket in the the tiller mounting pin holes that would allow me to place the actual mounting pins further away from the tiller. Any distance at all would be a plus.

They may not make such a thing but if they did I figured someone here would know if such a beast exists. You all may tell me that it is perfectly fine to just cut it that short. I wouldn't have a lot of room to extend the drive shaft at that point but I don't see there being a lot of travel required.

Thanks again.
JW
 

bczoom

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The shaft would only be 3"??? That's not good. The difference when the tiller is up vs. down may change the shaft length 3" (in which case, if it's tight when you lift, it may separate when the tiller is down).

How long are your 3PH lower lift arms? If you got some that are longer, that will push your implement(s) back farther giving you the distance. They're pretty universal. Here's an example at tractor supply for $60 each.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/forged-lift-arm-category-1-0265082

I can't think of any pre-fab extenders you can mount to the pins on the tiller. If you make something, you'll want it to be really beefy. If not, it'll bend pretty quickly if your ground is rocky and makes the tiller bounce a lot or if you accidentally back up with the tiller down.
 

GreenWannabe

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A Pat's Easy Change or a quick hitch would add about 4 inches between the pto shaft and the implement end. With the Pat's you also would need to extend your top link 4 inches, or buy a longer top link.
 

rlk

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Hi ... I'm in a pickle here. I own an E350 - DI and just bought a tiller. The drive shaft is too long. I know that I need to shorten it. My problem is that the drive shaft I have is 27 1/2 inches and the length I need is about 19 inches. I need to cut close to 9 inches off this thing. That makes for pretty darn short drive shaft. Can this be done? I mean it really is going to leave a small section of the plastic cover and a couple of inches longer of the actual shaft itself. - JW

JW, I might not understand your problem, but as I understand it, you need a drive shaft that is 19" long. So why wouldn't you take each side of your 27 1/2" drive shaft and cut it to 19 inches, then marry the two together to end up with one drive shaft that is 19" long?

I don't understand how you end up with a drive shaft that is only 3" long.

Bob
 

jwrivendell

New member
Bob - Let me see if I can clear this up. The total distance I have between my tractor drive line mount and the tiller drive line mount (to the bolt notch) is 19 inches or so. The drive line attachment ends comprise almost 15" of the current drive line I have for the tiller. The total length of which is 27 1/2 " long. So 15" of that are the ends. If I need 19 or 19 1/2" that means to get it to fit perfectly (which would give me no play at all) I would need the shaft to be cut to 4 or 4 1/2 inches. If I wanted some play I'd have to go even shorter than that. This doesn't seem workable to me. I thought I would run it by the group to see if there was agreement and to see about options.

So I'm wondering about bczoom's recommendation about some alternative lift arms that would be longer. I measured mine last night and they are 30" from end to end. If I could throw on the 34" arms that would gain me 4" which is a great start. This possibly would be enough.

In conjunction with that I'm considering Pat's Easy Change. From reading about this system it looks like it would add another 2 1/2 " which would then have me down to only cutting 3" off the line. This sounds like something that would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts on getting longer lift arms? I could try to pick the ones bczoom mentioned at TSC and see if they will mount to the tractor. Would I be better off locating 34" arms from a Mahindra parts dealer? Of course that assumes those are available.

Is there something odd about the E350-DI that causes me to be in this situation?

Thanks to all who have replied with suggestions. It has been very helpful.

- JW
 

bczoom

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jwrivendell

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BCZoom - These instructions are similar to the instructions provided with my tiller. My concern about the plastic shield is only with regard to how it would reflect the small amount of actual drive line I would have remaining. If I have a little over an inch of remaining shield the actual remaining drive line would be 3". Is it really going to work if I only have that 3" of drive line? As you suggest ... the plastic is nothing but a shield. If you all think running it with that small of a drive line is a good idea then I'm game.

Are you wondering if the longer lift arms is an option? I had hopes that this would help solve my issue.

Thanks
JW
 

bczoom

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3" doesn't sound good to me but I can't see what you do when looking at the setup.

You need about 6" of grab between the 2 parts (especially in the tillers operating position) plus enough play to:
Lower the tiller all the way down without the 2 halves separating.
Raise the tiller all the way up without both halves fully compressing because if they do, it's normally something inside your tractor that's going to break.

With the shaft between the u-joints being so short, I'm also a little bit concerned about the angle on the u-joints themselves.

Anyway you could post some pics so we can see what you're dealing with?
 

jwrivendell

New member
BCZoom - I can grab some pictures. The tiller is currently attached to the tractor ... of course without the drive line. If I measure the distance between the two pto attachment locations (tractor and tiller) I have only 21 1/2 inches. The drive line is 27 1/2 inches. For me to use that drive line, I would have to cut it down to 19 1/2 or 18 1/2 inches. That is cutting off 8 or 9 inches. If I pull the two drive lines apart and measure 9 inches off the end ... I'm left with virtually nothing. I can do the process as the pdf suggests but I will end up with the same result. I'll double check that statement.

Thanks for putting your thought into this. I'll follow the steps outlined in my manual and let you know the results. I'll grab some pictures.

- JW
 

bczoom

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If I measure the distance between the two pto attachment locations (tractor and tiller) I have only 21 1/2 inches.
Is that measurement taken with your 3PH full up (tiller in the air) or all the way down (tiller on ground)?
 

bczoom

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The drive line is 27 1/2 inches. For me to use that drive line, I would have to cut it down to 19 1/2 or 18 1/2 inches. That is cutting off 8 or 9 inches. If I pull the two drive lines apart and measure 9 inches off the end ... I'm left with virtually nothing. I can do the process as the pdf suggests but I will end up with the same result. I'll double check that statement.
Something isn't clicking right in this ole brain of mine. 27.5" - is that with both halves compressed into each other (the shortest you can make it)?

My brain is fried from working all day but I'm thinking from when I last did this you only cut off 1/2 of the total from each side. To make it 9" shorter, you cut 4.5" off of each end.
 

jwrivendell

New member
BCZoom - The shortest the drive line can go together is at 27 1/2 inches. My understanding is that you have to take the total reduction off both sides. 9 inches would come off both ends. If you only took 4 1/2 off you would only get a reduction in size of 4 1/2. I think.

- JW
 

bczoom

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I went straight from a bad day at work to some Labatt's Ice. Will ponder more (brain cells allowing). I'm still thinking 1/2 off each end. Grab two sticks the length of each side of the PTO shaft and break off 4.5" of each and put them back together and what's the result?

Let's try this.

Put your arms straight out to your sides. Bend the elbows and bring your fingers in front of your chest with hands extended so your finger tips just touch. Now, make a fist in each hand while keeping the arms in place. By making fists with your hands, you reduced their size by the length of your fingers (approx. 4.5"), Being x2, you have a 9" gap. When you put your 2 fists together, from elbow to elbow is now 9" shorter.

I'm going to go have another beer. ;)
 

jwrivendell

New member
OK ... so if I have two sticks that are 6 dashes long as below:

------
------

------------ (fully extended)

Now .... with those two sticks on top of each other or in our tractor drive line question one stick inside the other (compressed) they are still both combined only 6 dashes long. Fully extended they are 12 dashes long.

If I remove two dashes off these sticks:

----
----

-------- (fully extended)

Each stick is now 4 dashes long. Compressing the two sticks one inside the other I'm 4 dashes long (a loss of only 2 overall dash lengths). If I fully extend them, we now have an 8 dash long stick (a loss of the 2 dashes removed from each stick for a 4 dash total loss in length)

I haven't had a drink but boy this example sure looks like I have.



:a1:


What do you think? :)

- JW
 

bczoom

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If you separated the 2 parts of the shaft and laid them side-by-side, are both shafts the same length? If so, your idea sounds right. If not (the male is shorter then the female), adjust your cut accordingly.
 

jwrivendell

New member
Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy a pair of replacement arms from TSC. My only hope is that the hole in the middle of the arm matches up. Then I want to get the Pat's Easy Change system regardless. With those two combined, I will gain 6 1/2 inches. That would mean I would be cutting at most 3" off the drive shafts. Wish me luck ... I'll report back.
 

bczoom

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Good luck!
Take one of your lift arms with you to TSC. They should pop right off. That way you don't have to walk out with new ones to find they don't match.
 
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