Frozen Assets
New member
Hi
I am at my wits end with my 38" mowing deck. Heck, my wits don't go that far to start with these days! The mower employs a flat faced 3 dog PTO drive. I am running a 735 that has bee upgraded with a 745 PTO end with a slider that will engage both the flat face 3 dog driven implements and the older spline driven implements, a heavy duty cone clutch, and a Honda GX 390. I began having this problem last summer and not having the time to mess with it I just gave up an being able to collect and bag the leaves and grass and ran with the old 3 blade mower. Every time I would try to run the mower I would get a loud grinding sound and the blades would not be running. If I did get it running it would kick out by itself and start making that racket again.
I changed out both the PTO drive lug on the input shaft of the mower and the slider on the PTO output shaft of the tractor.
I measured both the end of the PTO drive slider and the drive lugs on the mower with reference to the mounting flanges on same and the lugs should be fully engaged when the slider is in the engaged position.
I tore the whole mower apart and drained all the oil out of the gearbox on the mower and pulled the cover off the end of the gear box and there is no end play in any of the shafts.
There is a small amount of lash in the gears, but no more than one would expect with all those bevel gears.
I renewed everything below the deck.
I tried pushing back manually on the face of the PTO slider when it is in the engaged position and I cannot make it retract without shifting the PTO lever so I don't think it is moving back out of mesh under power on its own.
After all this and over 500 bucks in parts I still can't use the #!@$%& mower. It still makes a loud clacking grinding noise most of the time when you engage the PTO lever and let out the main clutch. You can get it to engage if the tractor is running at idle and you feather out the clutch slowly but not always. If you do get the @#*&% thing mowing it will go out of gear all by itself and start that racket again. You can get the mower to run at speed if the tractor is in neutral i.e. the implement is running but the tractor is not moving. However it will periodically slow for a second and then resume speed. Kind of a mechanical hiccup. Kind of the way it would if the engine were missing. The engine is NOT missing. Also it will sometimes kick out. A fast change in throttle position will also make it kick out. I do not have this problem with ANY of the spline drive implements. (snow blower, 3 blade mower, chipper/shredder, sickle bar mower)
I sure would be interested in any ideas. Or am I the only guy in North America that has ever had this problem with a flat face three dog drive implement? Since I live in East Moose Poop, Alaska I pretty much do my own wrench bending.
I am at my wits end with my 38" mowing deck. Heck, my wits don't go that far to start with these days! The mower employs a flat faced 3 dog PTO drive. I am running a 735 that has bee upgraded with a 745 PTO end with a slider that will engage both the flat face 3 dog driven implements and the older spline driven implements, a heavy duty cone clutch, and a Honda GX 390. I began having this problem last summer and not having the time to mess with it I just gave up an being able to collect and bag the leaves and grass and ran with the old 3 blade mower. Every time I would try to run the mower I would get a loud grinding sound and the blades would not be running. If I did get it running it would kick out by itself and start making that racket again.
I changed out both the PTO drive lug on the input shaft of the mower and the slider on the PTO output shaft of the tractor.
I measured both the end of the PTO drive slider and the drive lugs on the mower with reference to the mounting flanges on same and the lugs should be fully engaged when the slider is in the engaged position.
I tore the whole mower apart and drained all the oil out of the gearbox on the mower and pulled the cover off the end of the gear box and there is no end play in any of the shafts.
There is a small amount of lash in the gears, but no more than one would expect with all those bevel gears.
I renewed everything below the deck.
I tried pushing back manually on the face of the PTO slider when it is in the engaged position and I cannot make it retract without shifting the PTO lever so I don't think it is moving back out of mesh under power on its own.
After all this and over 500 bucks in parts I still can't use the #!@$%& mower. It still makes a loud clacking grinding noise most of the time when you engage the PTO lever and let out the main clutch. You can get it to engage if the tractor is running at idle and you feather out the clutch slowly but not always. If you do get the @#*&% thing mowing it will go out of gear all by itself and start that racket again. You can get the mower to run at speed if the tractor is in neutral i.e. the implement is running but the tractor is not moving. However it will periodically slow for a second and then resume speed. Kind of a mechanical hiccup. Kind of the way it would if the engine were missing. The engine is NOT missing. Also it will sometimes kick out. A fast change in throttle position will also make it kick out. I do not have this problem with ANY of the spline drive implements. (snow blower, 3 blade mower, chipper/shredder, sickle bar mower)
I sure would be interested in any ideas. Or am I the only guy in North America that has ever had this problem with a flat face three dog drive implement? Since I live in East Moose Poop, Alaska I pretty much do my own wrench bending.
