Spent some more time on this project today. So much time if I was getting paid by the hour I would have had a great day. If I was getting paid by the job, I would have lost money. I wasn’t getting paid at all, and eventually got things functional so I suppose it was all good in the end.
Several days ago, had a look at the over run clutch on the Farmall to see if it had the requisite through hole. It did. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Started looking at how to get it off as it wasn’t obvious. Turns out there’s a grease zerk on one side and a set screw 180 degrees away on the opposite side. Took out the set screw. Turns out wasn’t holding anything. It’s just acting as a plug so you can remove the set screw and zerk to drive out the roll pin that’s driven through the hole in the underlying PTO stub. So you have to have a PTO stub with a hole in it to install this thing. Useless for this project.
Looked all over the internet and found this thing. Multiple suppliers had it available with prices from $12.99 to $70.00. Looks like they all come out of the same Chinese factory regardless the retailer. We have Walmart Plus which does away with shipping and it was returnable to the local store if it was junk, so I ordered one.
So far as quality, the Chinglish “key item features” clearly states “you do not need to worry about the quality” so it must be a high quality item. Right? Yeah…
It didn’t fit on the tractor PTO stub. Went on about 1/2” and stopped. Like it was broached with a worn out broach. Great…
Hoping it wouldn’t take much to get it to fit, started grinding it out with a Dremel yesterday toward the end of the day. Made good progress in the 30 minutes I had to work on it. Ended the day thinking it needed about 1/8” more to lock on. Started in on it this morning. Actually needed about 1/2” more. Despite yesterday’s success, seemed like I might as well needed a mile. Couldn’t use anything bigger than the Dremel because it had to be pretty small to fit in the hole and had to grind the grooves and splines separately. Had to take breaks due to the front bearing in the Dremel heating from the stress.
During one of those breaks, noticed a pneumatic die grinder hanging in the wall that came in a set of air tools about 25 years ago. Used it maybe twice in that whole time so I didn’t think of it. I could almost hear it saying, “Put me in, coach!” Switched to the die grinder and that sped things up a bit, but it was still painfully slow. After 3 hours (kind of embarrassing, but yes it was 3 hours of screwing around with it) finally had it on far enough the get it completely past the groove in the tractor PTO stub but not far enough for the locking pin to engage.
In the spirit of @JoeSmith and in keeping with the general theme of this implement, I gave up on re-grinding the splines and decided to drill and tap it for a 1/4-20 set screw to seat in the groove in the tractor PTO stub. It was hard, hard enough the swarf came out in little chips instead of curlies, but it got done without drama.
Now it has a positive connection to the tractor. Thankfully the male end fit the female end of the auger without modification.
The PTO shaft angle fully raised is pretty extreme, but it wouldn’t ever be running fully raised. With the extension not much worse than without.
The L is more like 2300lb so I loosened the clamp bolts and moved it forward to get more clearance for trsvel.
