Thx
Russell King. Soaked it again yesterday evening. There is no movement at all at this point. The yoke is frozen to the shaft.
I want to remove the shaft because at this point it is not sliding inside itself. Also my neighbor had a bigger tractor so I may need to modify the shaft. Is there a non-destructive way of getting the shaft cover off?
Thx Mike
Yes there is some method to get the plastic shield off without destroying it. BUT that works when the actual shaft slides apart.
Looking at your pictures it is difficult to see much since the plastic shield is black, but it looks like the plastic shield and the PTO shaft are pretty much as short (pushed together) as they can be. So you may be able to get the plastic ends loose but not move them.
To describe how the plastic is attached is a guess but there is generally some type of plastic bearing that attaches at both ends of the PTO shaft so the plastic shield is stationary while the steel shaft rotates. Then there is some type of attachment of the bell end to the yoke of the shaft. There is some type of release mechanism that allows the plastic bell to be released from the steel shaft yoke. I have one that looks like plastic screws but they aren’t really screws, they rotate the head in a way that moves it out of alignment with the actual hole, I have seen some that require some tab to be pressed in to move the plastic bell. There are many other methods that I haven’t seen.
I had the advantage that my stuck shaft did not have the plastic shield on it so I had access to the PTO shaft universal joints and they needed to be replaced so I was able to remove the u-joint at the implement end to get the shaft out of the way. Then there was more access to the yoke that was stuck. You may need to start at the tractor end and see if there is anyway to get the u-joint apart with the plastic shield in place or if there is room to move the plastic out of the way.
Take some closer pictures of the plastic bells (from the center area towards the ends) so we can locate the way to remove the plastic bells from the steel shaft. I am sure someone will have a similar cover as you do.
You may have to start sacrificing the plastic shield and then replace it if you can get the shaft off.
You may have to just cut the PTO shaft yoke off the implement but you have time to do other things first. Start with more pictures unless someone tells you how to get the plastic loose!
