Repair of PTO Gears

R.L. Drake Repair of PTO Gears

By Dave Campbell <wcampbell@odyssey.on.ca> (from the Drake Mailing List)

Thanks guys for the great advise in fixing my stiff PTO gear assembly. Here is a summary of what I had to do:

Separate the gear assembly from the PTO, then remove all the old grease from the worm gear and bearing.

Re-grease the bearing and lightly lubricate the worm gear.

Adjust the set screw for the bearing, just enough to take the play out but not to tight.

The above was the easy part, now comes the fun.

Completely disassembled the plastic gear assembly and dials
(Don't lose any of the six brass rivets!)
Washed all gears with dish soap and a toothbrush to get any oil and grease that I could out of the plastic.
Polished the two (swollen) bushings with #600 wet until they moved freely.
Once satisfied I washed them all again and dried everything with a hairdryer. (not to close!)
Re-assembled everything
One of the idler gears sat a little crooked so I bent the arm holding it slightly so it now sits square to the other gear.
Also had to place a thin fiber washer behind that same idler gear to center it with the gear it mates with.
The tension spring on the idler gear arms was a bit tight so I replaced it with one slightly less.

Thats about it! It's all back together and I can tune with one finger again. For anyone reading this and did not see the advice given to me I would like to repeat something very important:

DO NOT OIL OR GREASE THE PLASTIC GEARS!!
(it causes the plastic to swell)
Unless you want to do all the above!

Thanks again for the help guys.

Dave
VE3ZZY

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