Is this PTO salvageable?
 

Hey guys,

Rough day on the 149 - I got my tiller hooked up, and when I went to start the tractor, the tiller was pushing me forward as the engine was trying to turn.

Figuring it was something with the PTO, I looked in there, and saw the lever-throws were all chewed up and misaligned. I was having trouble with getting the PTO to disengage last year, so I just kept tightening the link coming off the PTO lever.

After doing a little research, it appears I'm, at minimum, missing the buttons.

Question is, do you think I can get away with just ordering the buttons and new lever-throws (about $70 for everything) or should I also get a rebuild kit?

The PTO itself worked fine and tilled our entire garden, so it's not completely shot.

Appreciate some thoughts on this.

Also, I've seen an adjustment gauge, is that something anyone has a link to or something that's DIY

Sorry about the rough day, we all have em. They are inevitable running
this old equipment. That PTO is toast. In my thinking you have a couple
choices. Rebuild that one. All the parts including the gauge you referenced
are available from the sellers linked at the top of the home page here.
Or depending on your confidence level with working on it. You can buy
a rebuilt and just replace it. I have rebuilt a couple of these and they
work fine but not without a bunch a fussing with them. I have always
been kind of amazed at how finicky they are.
Just replacing the buttons will only cost you more buttons. Time to
take that one apart. If you get hung up just shout.

Ken

A half assed rebuilt PTO is a PITA. Springs are probably cooked. Chance the bearing is shot, too. Get the rebuild kit....most of them have the setting gauge.

Or buy a rebuilt... check the sponsors above.

Get old one off of crank and disassemble for inspection. Chances are pretty good that it can be salvaged as you're thinking if you can get throw out lever retaining bolt nuts removed.
It really all comes down to how long you want the FIX to last. A few years vs another fifty with a new or rebuilt one.
If it were mine it would get new throw out levers and two new buttons and put back to work. It's really a pretty simple repair.

I started to give the set screws a soak in some pb blaster, but when turning the engine over for access, somehow the whole disc shifted and now the screw holes aren't aligned with the cut-out. Any suggestions?

sounds like you got oil on the friction disc-allowing it to slip even under spring pressure- if you are rebuilding it you should replace the friction disc, so no reason not to get the friction disc completely oiled up. then you should be able to turn the pressure plate independent of the pulley and realign the holes with the set screws- there should be two in each hole- one as a "lock" and one as a setscrew holding the pulley to the shaft

Read this thread....
https://www.onlycubcadets.net/forum/...ad.php?t=62547

Hit it with a little more penetrating oil and that did the trick. Thank you so much

If the pto is gripping and preventing you from lining the holes up, I put a 2 or 3 jaw puller legs in the belt groove and put enough tension on it to release the clutch allowing it to turn so the holes in the basket pulley line up, Blow those holes out good with compressed air and soak them with pb blaster, as someone said there should be 2 screws in each hole. ! good luck, I have rebuilt a few that looked like yours !

Bit of an update - I got everything assembled and back on, even successfully did a second till of the garden. I did notice that when I disengaged the PTO, it took a few seconds to fully stop. Didn't think much of it.

Got it back into the shop, and noticed one of the clutch fingers was loose, so I took it apart again and retightened everything in line with the gauge provided.

I just got done mowing the lawn today, and when I went to disengage, nothing happened. Took a look and that wear button that engages the thrust button was completely wore off. I had put a dollar bill's clearance betwen the wear button and thrust button, but that wasn't enough to get the clutch to stop spinning, so I tightened it a bit more. Order two of the brass versions of the wear button.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I'm doing wrong?

Did you put the ends of the throw out levers in the groove on the button?

same issue
 

Looks like have sort of the same issue as @Sonofsquink on a 122, son used it with rototiller to till the garden, the PTO was working fine but now the PTO will not dis-engage at all and it had wore down the fiber "wear-button", the set screws are out of alignment with the notches, I put a spacer where the wear button goes in hopes of being able to compress the spring to get it to turn to line up holes, that did not work. I have not had the opportunity to remove the the front of it to try the hammer on the thrust button method or 2 or 3 jaw puller legs to get it to move, (maybe should spray it good with PB Blaster and first). I did notice the disc is in bad shape look like it is in pieces.


Attachment 116458


Thoughts comments:

Is something going on with using tillers that cause PTO issues....?

I am curious if anyone has any idea what cause it to fail and not disengage the PTO? bearings locked-up or fried....?

So looks, like need to order a rebuild kit.....Also have looked at the other post on removing and rebuilding PTO along with you tube videos.

thanks for your time.

The thrust button appears to be on backwards

My bad. After looking at picture again I believe button is put on correct but maybe clutch is not adjusted correctly and is bottomed out therefore keeping clutch engaged ???

You also want to make sure bearing is flush with end of crankshaft and locking ring is tight. If it was loose it may have shifted towards engine leaving crankshaft protruding possibly preventing clutch from releasing.

Seems like you nailed it. I can see that the disc is too far back on the PTO basket. The key to rebuilding is to be sure you tighten the nuts for the fingers very tight.

same or worse problem as @Sonofsquink
 

So instead of tapping with hammer and trying to turn it to line hole with notch up (which does not appear to working) :bash2:, should I try a puller to pull out on it to get it to move...? or just bite the bullet and cut new notches out....?
or since the disc has a few tabs broke off, just break the rest of them off to line it up...

Is basket pulley in alignment with starter/generator pulley? If it is, either clutch has shifted or the missing pieces of the disc could possibly be wedged between clutch pulley and pressure plate. If that's the case you'll need to cut new access holes/notches to get set screws out or block crankshaft from turning and try rotating clutch to get pieces to hopefully dislodge. GOOD LUCK!

I would guess this pto is not assembled and or adjusted correctly. looking at the screws for the throw out levers, I believe they were originally phillips, but they were certainly all the same type-not two flat blade and one phillips.

you hit the nail on the head, after trying to get it to rotate with out luck, I broke off all the remaining tabs and could rotate it to line basket notches with the holes. Thankfully the set screws came out okay. And yes there was a piece of the disc wedge in between the disc and plate. so now just have to order the parts, @spndncash, yeah I noticed the screws are different too, so think need to order all new parts instead of just the new disc.

When everything is working as should, and the PTO is NOT engaged, Pulley A will spin with the engine and pulley B will not spin at all.
Then when you engage the PTO lever they both spin together.
So don't expect them both to be in the same alignment every time you look at them.
To align holes with screws, simply disengage PTO and rotate one pulley or the other into alignment.

I am by no means a stickler for OEM. But I would recommend a critical inspection of the parts already installed. I bought my parts from the site sponsors. I use a tiller, a home made leaf blower, pto driven generator and a pto driven compressor. I have never had any clutch issues after the rebuild. For my 106 I removed the front end loader, the hood/hood support/grill. So I only was willing to do this once - I turned my clutch surfaces while I was there- just to dress/true them.

The 122 was working fine until using it to till the garden, then when using it again they would not spin independently when Not engaged. The Cub Cadet 70 and 100 PTOs both work fine.

when finally got it off it had a piece of broken disc wedge in it. so it was always engaged.

Another question should the pressure spring be pretty well flat, instead of concaved see picture, guessing would not hurt to replace it too. thanks again for everyone's input

Oh sorry did not mean hijack post from @sonofsquink

Should be pretty flat. I would try flattening it. If you do try to flatten it do not use heat or hit it with a hammer. Would be best to get a new one if funds allow.

Thanks, yeah old parts, NOS, and re-manufactured parts are a little pricy... to rebuild it with replacing most of the parts is ~$200.00

So I am still not having any luck. Got the new wear buttons today, installed that and the pto again, gapped the distance between the wear and thrust button at about .015, and I still can't get it to disengage. I had to tighten the rod so much to get the pto to stop spinning that it started throwing brass shavings everywhere.

I also noticed that the original setup had dual friction discs, and the new one that came with the kit is significantly less thick.

I don't know what to do here, so any suggestions would help.

Is your PTO bearing installed flush with the end of the crankshaft as it is in this picture??

I believe so - I also used a dead-blow hammer to make sure it's fully seated

It just seems to me the bearing is sliding back on the crankshaft. Once that happens, any adjustments on the thrust buttons is useless. Are you using the locking collar? When you are tightening the crap out of the buttons to disengage the PTO, you are thrusting it into the end of crankshaft....just wasting time and buttons. Pull the PTO and make note where the bearing is sitting now!

That bearing should sit flush with the end of crankshaft and locked in with a concentric type locking collar. The crankshaft should be cleaned off any grease or wrap.

Other than that, are you using back lock nuts against the other nuts on the three screws for the fingers? They need to be as tight as you can make 'em with stripping the threads.

I just popped it back off - it looks like it's flush but there is some wear on the end of the shaft. Doesn't have any back-and-forth play. The lock nuts are as tight as I could possibly get them.

It's always hard to get a good perspective from pictures, but what I'm getting is that the main nuts are not tightened down enough.
There is hardly any thread showing after the jam nuts are applied.
When you disengage, the machine screws float inwards toward the motor and relieve the pressure sandwiching the disc.
If the screws are too long (i.e. nuts not adjusted right) they won't relieve the pressure.

Pictured is a PTO I rebuilt a while back and snips from the svc manual.
Hopefully they explain what I'm trying to say.

A lot of guys here are giving you good advice. I'm sure we're all as frustrated as you are. Anyway, From the latest picture you provided, I was wondering if that snapring inside the PTO is sitting in the groove? From my chair, it's hard to see but it does seem to be out of the groove...

That will allow pto to slide back and mess up the button adjustment.

I took that picture after experimenting with adding one of the old friction discs from the dual set up to the new single that came in the kit to see if maybe that extra thickness would help. Otherwise, the setup I have looked identical to your photos

I took it further apart to check, the snap ring appears to be seated in the groove. And it is a bit frustrating, and the lawn is only growing taller

Here's what they look like with only the new friction disc and everything set exactly as the gauge dictates:

Not sure if this could be contributing, but there's some decent wear on the arm of the rockshaft assembly

It appears from the pics you are dealing with used parts. If so the gauge will give erroneous results. Place a straight edge across back of pressure plate and measure from straight edge to snap ring and then measure from straight edge to inner side of pressure spring in it's center. You should have at least the equivalent of throw out lever movement plus button gap. If you don't have that much then you'll need to back each of the three nuts off till you get that much of a difference. That will allow for movement of the spring towards engine to release the pressure.

So I busted out the calipers - 1.277" from pressure plate to snap, and 1.482" to the center of the thrust button.

How do I measure throw out lever movement?

I think I pretty accurately measured lever travel after a couple of different methods - pretty consistently came out to roughly 3/16th to 13/64ths, which is pretty close to my 0.205 difference between the aforementioned measures on the pto

Looks like you are close to having the correct amount of play so you are going to have to back the nuts off till the pressure plate releases.
I will measure the travel on my clutch today and see if you have enough travel on your throw out lever. I think you do and it's just a matter of getting the proper adjustment.