OK…..I will be “That guy”…...

[Runs With Scissors]

So I have had my tractor for ~4’ish years…..

If I take my left sock off, I can count the number of times I have used a “PTO driven” implement.

General Jackson (my BH-77 backhoe) spends 98.763% of the time on the back.

1.004% can be claimed by the Box Blade, and the rest of the implements divided up the rest of the time equally.

So I go to hook up the PHD the other day…….

Turns out to be like “A fat guy, wrestling with a walrus…..in Jello"

I finally get the 3 pt stuff hooked up, after much thought, trial, and error.

So with smoke pouring out of my ears, and whilst “sweating, like a whore sitting in church”, all I have to do is connect the PTO up, and I’ll be done…...

Well sir/ma’am, let me tell you something….I am on the hunt for the dirty rotten bastard that made it so the F’ing “collar” moves 2 ways?

I don’t even know how long, nor how many cuss words I strung together trying to get that ____D___n PTO ‘locked on”….

I had it pulled back …like this



For over a damn hour!!!!!!!

I was bent over…crawled under……put my leg over my shoulder while giving it a “reach around”...

Still, it would not lock into place!!!!!

I finaly said “F’it”……….Must be that stupid ass “safety cover”

i



So here we are now…..This MUST be the reason……..GET SOME!!!!!!!!!!




Now it should slip on easy!!!!

NOPE…...

Another 25 minutes of playing “greasy, sweaty, circus contortionist” ….and still nothing….




Then out of pure frustration, I look into the coupler and try to press one of the balls down.

It wont move?…….Hmmm?????

I got a screwdriver and played with my locking balls for another 10 minutes, and nothing!!!!!!

Then for reasons still unexplained, I pulled the collar in the other direction….like so….




EUREKA!!!! EUREKA!!!!! EUREKA!!!!!!!

My balls finally slipped into position!!!!!!!!

5 seconds later I was done

 

[JonM]

lol i did that first time i tried hooking up a pto. it was quite sometime later when i realized i was making it way harder. i would try and keep the coupler ring unlocked the whole time just struggling before it finally clicked i could slide the whole thing on till it stopped and having the drive line level to the pto i could then just open the lock ring and slide it home. if the splines arent lined up its usually easier to rotate the tractor pto shaft than the implement side

 

[Bmyers]

I guess I should be thankful that I have a push button on my PTO, no figuring out which direction it need to be pulled.

 

[William1]

Damn man! You are always having issues with your balls. Perhaps you ought to get them fixed?
Yeah... any collar that works like that, it seems the direction of pull is always opposite the direction of connection, so as you pull the collar, you also pull it out of alignment of just off altogether.
It should be... start on the shaft, grab the collar, and push the shaft on, that motion also moving the collar and 'CLICK' when in place, releasing the collar it returns to how it was before you 'got involved'. Another 'should be' is me shutting up!

 

[GeoHorn]

PHDs can be difficult to mount even when everything goes RIGHT.

But …RWS…. you are such a clever fellow in every way…I always look forward to reading your posts. …. BUT THIS ONE…. I’m glad to see you really ARE just as HUMAN as the rest of us.

I made a PHD storage-rack that actually makes this job bearable. I didn’t invent it. I STOLE the idea from another guy…. but it’s on casters and rolls right up behind the tractor and supports the PHD while mounting/dismounting it. Such a device can make-or-break the phd owner.

I made mine out of 4” sq tubing and casters…but Here a some solutions other have created that might help folks: https://www.greentractortalk.com/th...digger-stand.116378/#lg=thread-116378&slide=3

 

[jimh406]

I'll just add that a QH doesn't make it easier since you have to get through the QH.

 

[Old_Paint]

I'll just add that a QH doesn't make it easier since you have to get through the QH.

Oh my. The words I have said to that QH when connecting the WC-68. Easy enough to connect the 3 point hitch, just not the driveshaft. This I think is where the Pat's hitches would be heaps better.

 

[Paul Allwood]

It doesn't matter what you're doing, it's always worth a read

 

[Old_Paint]

So I have had my tractor for ~4’ish years…..

If I take my left sock off, I can count the number of times I have used a “PTO driven” implement.

General Jackson (my BH-77 backhoe) spends 98.763% of the time on the back.

1.004% can be claimed by the Box Blade, and the rest of the implements divided up the rest of the time equally.

So I go to hook up the PHD the other day…….

Turns out to be like “A fat guy, wrestling with a walrus…..in Jello"

I finally get the 3 pt stuff hooked up, after much thought, trial, and error.

So with smoke pouring out of my ears, and whilst “sweating, like a whore sitting in church”, all I have to do is connect the PTO up, and I’ll be done…...

Well sir/ma’am, let me tell you something….I am on the hunt for the dirty rotten bastard that made it so the F’ing “collar” moves 2 ways?

I don’t even know how long, nor how many cuss words I strung together trying to get that ____D___n PTO ‘locked on”….

I had it pulled back …like this

View attachment 176797

For over a damn hour!!!!!!!

I was bent over…crawled under……put my leg over my shoulder while giving it a “reach around”...

Still, it would not lock into place!!!!!

I finaly said “F’it”……….Must be that stupid ass “safety cover”

View attachment 176798 i



So here we are now…..This MUST be the reason……..GET SOME!!!!!!!!!!


View attachment 176799

Now it should slip on easy!!!!

NOPE…...

Another 25 minutes of playing “greasy, sweaty, circus contortionist” ….and still nothing….

View attachment 176802


Then out of pure frustration, I look into the coupler and try to press one of the balls down.

It wont move?…….Hmmm?????

I got a screwdriver and played with my locking balls for another 10 minutes, and nothing!!!!!!

Then for reasons still unexplained, I pulled the collar in the other direction….like so….

View attachment 176803


EUREKA!!!! EUREKA!!!!! EUREKA!!!!!!!

My balls finally slipped into position!!!!!!!!

5 seconds later I was done

You call that a dirty hand? (Snicker)

I have one of the County Line PHD's. It didn't take long to figure out how to put it on the tractor nor to fit the driveshaft, but yes, it's heavy, awkward, and is much akin to a monkey F'in a football when I put mine on.

What did take some time to learn, however, is that another name for a PHD with a 9-inch auger on it is GIANT EARTH SCREW. A 9-inch screw will stand a tractor up on end in a BLINK.

Last year, we had a rather dry summer, and once you get past the 1/4" of topsoil I have, it's clay and rocks and roots and glass and bb guns and headless doll torsos. My house was apparently built on an old dump that covered most of the property. Some of the things I have found have ended with "What the .....?" and were never figured out.

But getting back to the PHD, the first time I had to use it was a bit of a sad emergency. We had a chicken get sour crop, and no amount of effort would save her. My wife was holding her when she died, so putting her in a Walmart bag and into the bin which would be emptied the next morning was NOT an option. The chicken, of course, not my wife. So I get tasked with burying the bird before my granddaughter gets home from her stay at her auntie's place for babysitting. I already know that the QH is coming off, so I drop that in the shop, and head out to the PHD. Just about the time I picked up the arch, it started raining. New paint that's wet makes that thing like wrestling a greased pig. It was raining lightly, but raining. As the installation progressed, so did the rain. Still not a bad rain, and it was warm weather, so I didn't really mind other than my clothing binding on me. I back up to where we decided to put the poor chicken's eternal resting place, set the brakes, and lifted the front end with the bucket to make the tractor as stable as possible. I wound the RPM up to 540 on the PTO and started to slowly lower the boom. As soon as the point of the auger touched the ground, my poor little LX2610 reared up like a wild stallion, grunted, moaned, and stalled as the auger IMMEDIATELY tried to go to Australia via the Earth's core and drag the tractor in behind it. I buried about half the auger flutes in the ground, and figured I was pretty lucky that the tractor stalled. Now it's raining just a little harder, and my wife is now soaked and holding the dead bird (btw, it's in an old pillow case so it won't get dirty when we bury it) and crying. I have to go get my biggest pipe wrench to wiggle the auger loose from the gearbox. It's raining harder yet when I get back, and I haven't even thought about getting a hole dug for the bird yet. I took the driveshaft off, and backed the auger out by turning the gearbox backward using a drift pin in the bolt hole in the input shaft. That was NOT fast work, not nearly as fast as 540 RPM was in the opposite direction. (BTW, WHY OH WHY on a hydraulically powered tractor doesn't Kubota offer a reverse on the PTO? Even if it's an intermittent thing that takes a college degree and special handshake to operate it, a reverse function would sure make using a PHD a lot easier on a 3 point hitch.) Ennyhoo, auger's out, driveshaft back on, and it's raining harder. The rain drops are now the size of golf balls. Back to step one of revving up the engine, and step 2 GENTLY lowering the auger, and step 3, watching it bury itself AGAIN and stall the tractor AGAIN. My blood pressure was probably at very dangerous levels, and I would have made a longshoreman blush with the profanity, but now, I'm hell bent this chicken is getting buried. I had pulled just enough dirt out of the hole to leave some clay around it. After about 30 seconds of golf-ball sized rain drops, that stuff was slicker than greased monkey snot on a boiled egg. Until I stepped in it, at which point it became as sticky as DRIED monkey snot and turned my size 8-1/2 shoes into size 18 that weighed about 30 pounds each. More profanity, now the rain drops are the size of baseballs and nearly knocking me unconscious. The missus has now abandoned the interment of the unlucky hen and gone inside, and I'm taking the PHD apart again. Once I got the auger out again, I could see that something had rubbed it as I backed it out. After getting it out of the hole, I see a 4-inch root from some tree that was at least 30 feet away in any direction I looked and across a ditch in two of those directions. The auger was catching on the root as I lowered it and the root just made it bury itself. It just so happened to be angled just right for the cutter teeth to miss it and let the flutes go under it. I moved the tractor forward about a foot, and took another shot at it. I managed that time to make a nice neat 4 foot deep hole (coyote proof). I deposited the chicken corpse, raked the dirt back in the hole packing it as I did, and finally topped it off with a handful of river rock that I had laying around for a small cairn. Just as I finished putting the last rock on it, the rain stopped. We hadn't had rain in 3 months, by the way, and didn't get it again for nearly 6 weeks after the Chicken Funeral.

All said and done, I nearly drowned just trying to dig a damn hole to put a chicken in it. When I got in the house (covered in mud from head to toe) the missus was in tears holding back the laughter at me. The sorrow for the chicken was long gone, and all tears were for what she thought was a humorous event. I DARED her to laugh out loud, and explained that the next one was getting a Walmart bag and a trip to the city landfill.

 

[GrumpyFarmer]

Buddy i had a crappy day and you sure made it better…even though I spit damn good bourbon out on that one…I do appreciate you made me laugh today.

now that we have pleasantries out the way:

First of all I am glad you found your balls.

second do you always wrestle in jello before going to church?

third how could there not have been a monkey and football reference as you were loving the PHD onto the shaft?

Fourth, welcome to the club of arguing with the PTO shaft. I can attest your experience is not unique (ive be been there more than once), except maybe when I was wrastlin’ in jello the last time she was not a walrus, was most certainly not followed by going to church.

@RWS…jokes aside, that was Great read at the end of the day, I am glad you are back to tractorin’.

 

[KubotaHawg]

You call that a dirty hand? (Snicker)

I have one of the County Line PHD's. It didn't take long to figure out how to put it on the tractor nor to fit the driveshaft, but yes, it's heavy, awkward, and is much akin to a monkey F'in a football when I put mine on.

What did take some time to learn, however, is that another name for a PHD with a 9-inch auger on it is GIANT EARTH SCREW. A 9-inch screw will stand a tractor up on end in a BLINK.

Last year, we had a rather dry summer, and once you get past the 1/4" of topsoil I have, it's clay and rocks and roots and glass and bb guns and headless doll torsos. My house was apparently built on an old dump that covered most of the property. Some of the things I have found have ended with "What the .....?" and were never figured out.

But getting back to the PHD, the first time I had to use it was a bit of a sad emergency. We had a chicken get sour crop, and no amount of effort would save her. My wife was holding her when she died, so putting her in a Walmart bag and into the bin which would be emptied the next morning was NOT an option. The chicken, of course, not my wife. So I get tasked with burying the bird before my granddaughter gets home from her stay at her auntie's place for babysitting. I already know that the QH is coming off, so I drop that in the shop, and head out to the PHD. Just about the time I picked up the arch, it started raining. New paint that's wet makes that thing like wrestling a greased pig. It was raining lightly, but raining. As the installation progressed, so did the rain. Still not a bad rain, and it was warm weather, so I didn't really mind other than my clothing binding on me. I back up to where we decided to put the poor chicken's eternal resting place, set the brakes, and lifted the front end with the bucket to make the tractor as stable as possible. I wound the RPM up to 540 on the PTO and started to slowly lower the boom. As soon as the point of the auger touched the ground, my poor little LX2610 reared up like a wild stallion, grunted, moaned, and stalled as the auger IMMEDIATELY tried to go to Australia via the Earth's core and drag the tractor in behind it. I buried about half the auger flutes in the ground, and figured I was pretty lucky that the tractor stalled. Now it's raining just a little harder, and my wife is now soaked and holding the dead bird (btw, it's in an old pillow case so it won't get dirty when we bury it) and crying. I have to go get my biggest pipe wrench to wiggle the auger loose from the gearbox. It's raining harder yet when I get back, and I haven't even thought about getting a hole dug for the bird yet. I took the driveshaft off, and backed the auger out by turning the gearbox backward using a drift pin in the bolt hole in the input shaft. That was NOT fast work, not nearly as fast as 540 RPM was in the opposite direction. (BTW, WHY OH WHY on a hydraulically powered tractor doesn't Kubota offer a reverse on the PTO? Even if it's an intermittent thing that takes a college degree and special handshake to operate it, a reverse function would sure make using a PHD a lot easier on a 3 point hitch.) Ennyhoo, auger's out, driveshaft back on, and it's raining harder. The rain drops are now the size of golf balls. Back to step one of revving up the engine, and step 2 GENTLY lowering the auger, and step 3, watching it bury itself AGAIN and stall the tractor AGAIN. My blood pressure was probably at very dangerous levels, and I would have made a longshoreman blush with the profanity, but now, I'm hell bent this chicken is getting buried. I had pulled just enough dirt out of the hole to leave some clay around it. After about 30 seconds of golf-ball sized rain drops, that stuff was slicker than greased monkey snot on a boiled egg. Until I stepped in it, at which point it became as sticky as DRIED monkey snot and turned my size 8-1/2 shoes into size 18 that weighed about 30 pounds each. More profanity, now the rain drops are the size of baseballs and nearly knocking me unconscious. The missus has now abandoned the interment of the unlucky hen and gone inside, and I'm taking the PHD apart again. Once I got the auger out again, I could see that something had rubbed it as I backed it out. After getting it out of the hole, I see a 4-inch root from some tree that was at least 30 feet away in any direction I looked and across a ditch in two of those directions. The auger was catching on the root as I lowered it and the root just made it bury itself. It just so happened to be angled just right for the cutter teeth to miss it and let the flutes go under it. I moved the tractor forward about a foot, and took another shot at it. I managed that time to make a nice neat 4 foot deep hole (coyote proof). I deposited the chicken corpse, raked the dirt back in the hole packing it as I did, and finally topped it off with a handful of river rock that I had laying around for a small cairn. Just as I finished putting the last rock on it, the rain stopped. We hadn't had rain in 3 months, by the way, and didn't get it again for nearly 6 weeks after the Chicken Funeral.

All said and done, I nearly drowned just trying to dig a damn hole to put a chicken in it. When I got in the house (covered in mud from head to toe) the missus was in tears holding back the laughter at me. The sorrow for the chicken was long gone, and all tears were for what she thought was a humorous event. I DARED her to laugh out loud, and explained that the next one was getting a Walmart bag and a trip to the city landfill.

Holy shit dude I just hurt myself, thank you for my gut hurting from laughing

And yeah, as I have said before, our wives are DEFINITELY kindred spirits at the very least…

Edit: you’re not the only guy RWS—been there, cussed, done that—there’s a reason all my PTO stuff has a button now…

 

[Bearcatrp]

Time to get neutered. no more balls!

 

[Trustable]

Haha that was a good read! I’m sure lots of us (or at least me, multiple times) have had issues connecting something on the tractor. Were you doing this last week during the heat in MI? If so that would have been rage inducing.