Pull-Back collar on PTO shaft

[Roy Najecki]

Hi,
New member here with arthritis in hands. I just spent several hours kissing, cursing and aching, trying to get a very well lubricated driveshaft onto the Deere's spline. Damn thing kept insisting I buy it dinner first!
Short version, My hands (at 74) are no longer strong enough to Hold back the collar to release the ball bearings while pushing the shaft forward. I can still do the rods ok, and the twister ok, but the pull back defeats me.
Finally got it on with second person tapping on the collar as I pulled back.

Question: does anyone make a strong enough clip to hold the collar back until mounted?
or
is it easy to replace the pull back collar with a rod collar? or a twist collar?

Thanks

I have the same problem with my pull back collar and this is how I solved it. I put the tractor end of the PTO shaft on my workbench and pulled back the collar. I measured the pull-back distance and it was 5/16" from the snap ring to the face of the collar, and the now exposed shaft was 2" diameter. I had a length of 1/4" square aluminum stock (I didn't have any 5/16"), put it into a bench vise, and hammered into a rectangular 'U" with 2" ID. I pulled back the collar, inserted my new aluminum jig, which held the collar back enough that I could slip the PTO shaft onto the tractor spined stub without difficulty. With the PTO shaft now on the stub I pushed the legs of my jig off the collar and voila, the collar closed.

I wanted to also have the option of using the hitch pin method that Doneill127 pictured. So with the PTO shaft back on the workbench I put on my aluminum U jig and then inserted two small 1/16" thick brass shims (the hourglass shaped piece in the photo). That pulled the collar back to the maximum 5/16". I then drilled two holes for the hitch pins.

I often have difficulty lining up the tractor stub splines with the PTO shaft spines. So using a cold chisel I created a small groove at the edge of PTO shaft coupling in line with the spline. Then I painted each groove with white paint. Now it is easy for me to see when the tractor stub splines are aligned with the PTO shaft spines.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Some of my implements still have the push button spline lock. With those, I use a welding clamp to keep the button pressed while I line up the splines. Much easier on these 79 year old arthritic hands.

I'm working on a similar idea for the collar locks using this clamp:

When I get the chance, I'm going to try heating & bending the tabs to fit the collar mechanism. If that doesn't work, I'll weld on new tabs.