Mowing Cutter death trap

[jwmorris]

Vevor does as well and is very cheap. The one I have is holding up well and in use on a stump grinder.

 

[MHarryE]

Somebody said standard began in 1980. I have equipment older than that (New Holland) and shafts are rectangular. The old baler I recently sold and the ancient Haybine I still for the few acres of hay I cut are rectangular. I realize the OP's cutter is really old but I can't remember one that can be put together out of phase. My recommendation on this is buy an entirely new driveline.

 

[ZiggyD]

Like so:View attachment 3712641View attachment 3712642

This is super helpful. My shafts are much shorter so they don’t vibrate as wildly but it’s totally possible that they were misaligned and I didn’t even know.

 

[neilpaku]

If the shaft is bent as well, then just get a whole new shaft. It'll deal with the universal joints and the missing/broken shield. All that vibration and phasing is putting extra stress on the entire driveline, from the engine through to the implement

 

[Torvy]

Somebody said standard began in 1980. I have equipment older than that (New Holland) and shafts are rectangular. The old baler I recently sold and the ancient Haybine I still for the few acres of hay I cut are rectangular. I realize the OP's cutter is really old but I can't remember one that can be put together out of phase. My recommendation on this is buy an entirely new driveline.

Yep. Before the standards, you had good and bad options. Standardization is typically good, but sometimes the 'standard' chosen isn't even the best choice available at thst point in history.

I agree. It is probably less headache to just make it fit the modern standard.

 

[kneedeep]

That drive shaft section from tractor to the knuckle is bent. It will eventually blow apart after damaging all the u joints.
Replace ASAP before more damage is done.

 

[Bentrim]

As has been pointed out in previous posts your joints are out of phase. Also noticed you only half half the shield on the PTO shaft and the bell over the front joint is bent in, is it cotacting the yoke? The back half of the shield is missing causing the front half to rattle. Suggest you replace the complete safety shield.
By observing your video the shafts nor the PTO shaft of the tractor appear bent. You may want to observe this closer. Remove shaft from tractor, start PTO and watch shaft to see if it is running true. Also watch close, once you rephase the shaft to see it it is bent.
As far as the shape of the shaft most early shafts were square and could be put together wrong out of phase. Then they started putting weld dots or a rivet on one side so the could only be inserted correctly. I have even seen splined shafts with a dot of weld between two splines. Have also found rectangular shaft that only fit correctly. Most of these were US manufactured. When finish mowers and three point mounted spreader began to be imported the three cornered shafts appeared. Most of those were from Italy.

 

[zzvyb6]

I just bought a 55" collapsed length 540 tractor end 21 spline baler end, CV jointed + slip clutch for $600 from this place. It weighs about 100 lbs. For my Vicon 1210 round baler. The guy who sold it had removed the CV shaft and replaced it with a standard one apparently to keep the value of it. Turning in the field was a nightmare.
CV joint equipped shafts are usually 2 - 3 times the price of a plain vanilla one.

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[Bob Gibson]

Thank you. This is good news then. I also found that one of the yokes is now missing the cap and bearings, so that is part of the problem in combination of the misphasing. I’ll get yoke corrected this week assuming supply has the right parts in stock. I should be able to correct the alignment by just rotating the shaft since it is square. Thank you for your help.



View attachment 3712658
View attachment 3712659

A lot of drive lines look square but aren't, check the measurements of the shaft. They are made that way so that they can't be assembled out-of-phase. Possibly yours had a damaged yoke at one time and somebody put a replacement yoke on it out-of-phase. Hard to do, but with a good grinder and welder, anything is possible.

 

[Bob Gibson]

Kodiak45, while you have it apart, straighten out the metal cover, your ears will appreciate the effort.

Naw, surely not I'm the only one to forget to disconnect the pto shaft from the tractor when unhooking.
This is the first I've heard of pto shaft timing, but then all my stuff is 540RPM. My triangular shafts have 1 longer side.

That's right, and most shafts that look square probably aren't, they may be 1" by 1 1/8", so that they cannot be assembled out-of-phase. If somebody modified a shaft or yoke to make it work, that could be part of the vibration problem and if you need to replace the shaft or yoke, most good machine shops will have the correct dimensioned shaft stock or yokes to make it right.