How dangerous is YOUR PTO?

[Al 2]

Many sad stories. A number of years ago near here a guys grandson got to close to the shaft while a snowblower was hooked up and running. An awful mess.

 

[MHarryE]

Ironic thing is the ones who remove their shields or don't replace them if they fail are ones who sue ASAP if they are injured. Combines - customers always say nothing is going to happen to me and next thing they are suing for the arm or leg they lost to a header drive shaft with missing shield, a regular PTO driveline. Even when they knew they were going to fail the still sued hoping for a sympathetic jury. My dad was the same way. Fortunately the accident I had with one of our PTO shafts, totally unguarded, left only a 2" scar on one thumb as a reminder.

 

[paulfun9]

I've never had to replace the plastic shield/cover. I bought an entire new shaft when I got the new tractor & I think it was around $300. I would seriously look into plastic drain pipe etc prior to paying $200 for a new shield.

However, I would want to be certain the plastic df pipe was doing the job. It makes me shiver just to think of my flannel shirt beginning to wrap around the PTO shaft.

I still practice the first thing that I was told about operating any type machine. No baggy or hanging clothes!

 

[yoder]

Ironic thing is the ones who remove their shields or don't replace them if they fail are ones who sue ASAP if they are injured. Combines - customers always say nothing is going to happen to me and next thing they are suing for the arm or leg they lost to a header drive shaft with missing shield, a regular PTO driveline. Even when they knew they were going to fail the still sued hoping for a sympathetic jury. My dad was the same way. Fortunately the accident I had with one of our PTO shafts, totally unguarded, left only a 2" scar on one thumb as a reminder.

I beg to differ sir . I removed my bush hog
Pto sheld because it is so hard to grease with it on there and I am far far from a sue happy
Liberal want a free ride guy. If it was a stationary unit I would keep something on there but when I am off it is off.

 

[paulfun9]

The people that remove or don't replace are the same ones that don't need that silly seat switch that shuts the tractor off when no one is in the seat.
I live in farm country and have seen the results of not using this safety equiptment;and it's not pretty at all.
I will keep mine on and what-ever replacement cost is,it's a lot less than severed arms and a thrashing death.

Sad thing with this post is I have seen what happens as well and in every case I also see the other things the person should not have been doing that actually caused the accident to happen. In many cases the accident would have been minimized by some of the safety devices but the hard facts are that the other things should not have been done as well.

Common sense! Being aware of your surroundings, following the rules of operation will keep you out of trouble much better than any safety device they can install.

First rule of tractor or any machine is that the NUMBER ONE most important safety device is You. My Grandfather used to say what will these fools do when one of their safety devices fail and the bad habits they have created because they rely so heavily on the safety device puts them immediately in harms way!

So for me the seat safety switch is disconnected and I still don't get near the turning PTO. Been running tractors since I was a kid and none of those machines had any safety devices on them but using common sense and diligence in operation has kept me out of trouble so far so when the seat switch becomes an annoyance it gets disconnected and when a PTO shaft cover gets out of shape it gets repaired when I have time not right now because the operation of the machine will be the same with or without it and no one will get close to it while its spinning either way!

 

[aczlan]

Your PTO will also be unsafe if you replace the shear pin with wire. Here's what happened to a friend of mine: She was driving a tractor with a shredder. Someone had replaced a broken shear pin with a piece of wire. The lady hit a solid object which caused the back end of the PTO to break loose from the gear box, allowing the still rotating shaft to fly up and hit her in the head and put her into a 6 week coma. This happened years ago but the brain damage lingers on. Worthy of note, the old tractor she was driving was before ROPS were standard equipment.

Generally, there is a secondary retainer (a c clip on our bushhog) to keep the shaft attached at both ends if the shearpin lets go.
If you have something with a shearpin, PLEASE make sure the shaft can't come loose if the shearpin breaks.

Aaron Z

 

[RoyJackson]

I still practice the first thing that I was told about operating any type machine. No baggy or hanging clothes!

And snug gloves! Never the gauntlet type! You want elastic around the wrist.

 

[ovrszd]

As terrible as that is, he's fortunate it wasn't worse. Obviously didn't wrap him up...

My wife's grandpa is missing his right arm at the shoulder from a hay baler accident. Back in the day, before the word safety was invented, he was shoulder deep removing a clog in the baler. Not sure of the details, but someone engaged the tractor before he was done. Hanging on with his left arm is the only thing that kept him from going all the way in.

Again, as a kid, I saw our neighbor stuck in an old Allis Chalmers round baler the same way. Right arm to the shoulder. Saved his arm but messed it up pretty bad. Watched my Dad disassemble the baler to get him out. Then we hauled him to the ER in the pickup. No ambulances back then.

 

[MHarryE]

I beg to differ sir . I removed my bush hog Pto sheld because it is so hard to grease with it on there and I am far far from a sue happy Liberal want a free ride guy. If it was a stationary unit I would keep something on there but when I am off it is off.

You have the Liberal vs Conservative i idealism wrong. We're talking people who have list their livelihood, mostly farmers who tend to be conservative. Suddenly they have lost their ability to earn a living. They also often face large medical bills. Very conservative types file lawsuits in hopes of a settlement that will provide for their living.

Allis-Chalmers Roto-Balers were mentioned. Major mistake on Allis' part. So many farmers had disabling injuries that at one time A-C considered buying them back - years after the last one left the factory. After the A-C bankruptcy the sole remaining person who had worked on those balers was our Operators Manual writer. We went overboard on safety precautions due to his background litigating lawsuits. Seeing pictures, reading police reports - luckily I have a strong stomach. Like the driver who disabled his OPD, then fell off his machine and was run over and crushed. Even with injuries so severe he lived long enough to say, "Help me!", to the person coming to his aid. His family sued citing a faulty OPD but the court immediately issued a summary judgement upon finding the OPD was disabled. In this case a family suddenly lost their sole means of support.

 

[brown40]

Mine are in varying states, and have never been messed with. I'm not sure how they manage to find plastic that denatures so rapidly in the sun as 'erosion mustard' PTO cover material. The black ABS types seem to hold up much better. I haven't replaced the covers, and am no more or less terrified of the PTO's ability to tear me up. When I have to run off the seat I'm aware there's an engine driven shaft running the implement, so I don't get close enough to fall into it. If folks really want to 'prevent' risks of injury from PTO shafts, pulleys, chains, and winches, they need to be guarded with solid material you can't break--steel mesh or solid. Most safe is avoiding power equipment altogether.
The trade-off of guarding is ease of accessibility and maintenance--thus a flimsy plastic piece that degrades in the sun meets the manufacturer's legal needs: worked fine when they got it. Replacement parts available biannually--for a modest fee.

 

[JKR]

I look at PTO shaft like a chainsaw. You don't go near the chain on a chainsaw when running so why would you touch a PTO when running.
I keep my cover on my PTO and safety chain on the covers.
My rule around any power equipment is safety first you will live longer.

 

[Streetcar]

How many have older equipment that never came with cover for the pto shaft. My older PhDs has bare shaft.

 

[GreenYellow]

How many have older equipment that never came with cover for the pto shaft. My older PhDs has bare shaft.

My uncle still uses his MF Super 90 every day and there's not a safety mechanism anywhere on that thing. He has a whole row of attachments and none have guards. He's not missing any limbs.

 

[Dftodd]

We used to have an old pto driven wood splitter that ran off a military style pto pump. Wood splitter stayed blocked and chocked where you were using it. You hooked a pto shaft to the pto pump on the splitter, backed the tractor up to it, and someone else connected the pto shaft. No shields for pto shaft, and no clips or bolts securing the pto shaft to tractor or splitter. Just tension from backing the tractor up till the shaft was snug. My grandfather built the splitter out of old dozer and dump truck parts 45 years ago. He sold it to his neighbor when he sold the farm 12 years ago. Wood splitter is still being used as of two years ago when I ran into the guy that bought it. That set up would give someone fits today, but while we had it, it would average splitting around 60 chord of wood yearly.

 

[RaydaKub]

When I was a kid, several neighbors would gather in the fall to chop corn silage. Whether it went into a pile or into the silo, someone almost always got up in the wagon to kick down the silage that would stick to the sides of the wagon. Virtually every time, that man (and sometimes it was me) would climb up into the wagon from the tongue right up over the turning pto that ran the conveyor chain in the forage box. Several pto's had no shield and I couldn't say how well those that did were maintained. There was a small step about 6x6 right above the knuckle to get you up over the front.

Never an accident with anyone, but sheesh, we were stupid.

 

[MikePA]

Please remember this is a Owning Operating forum, not Gruesome Photo forum.

 

[Fawken]

Please remember this is a Owning Operating forum, not Gruesome Photo forum.

It was gruesome, but was it authentic?

 

[CobyRupert]

I'm not that bad yet. But I've gotten off the tractor and walked around to the brush cutter and the shaft is still idly spinning. Which means if you stick your toes under it you are probably going to need a pedicure at a minimum.

So don't properly maintained PTO shields mean you can't see the PTO shaft spinning and mistakenly think the blade has stopped turning?

Seems like proper shields that don't spin present a greater danger in this case.

 

[ecbaatz]

There is only one implement that uses the tractor as a stationary power unit...that's my chipper. The PTO drive shaft cover does not rotate with the shaft itself and I give it wide berth (at least 5-6 feet) even with the cover.
The RFM and rotary cutter...well, if I'm going to leave the tractor, the PTO shuts the tractor down if I don't disengage it.

I have an irrigation pump that we use to water the blueberries. Therefore my pto will stay on with me out of the seat (rear only). I am not going to sit on a stationary tractor for 2-3 hours just to keep the pto running while watering.