This is a narrative describing the maintenance of Land Pride
drive lines. I have a Land Pride tiller (RTR 1274) and a Land Pride rotary
mower (RCR 1872). I needed to shorten the drive line of the tiller, grease the
drive lines for both implements, and disassemble the slip clutches for both
implements. I am NOT a professional mechanic, and people using this information
presented here do so at their own risk as far as injury or equipment damage.
Follow what your manual or dealer or the manufacturer tell you. I provide this
information as an example of what worked for my equipment, based on what I
learned from the dealer, my manual and my fooling with it. Others may have
better advice, but I am posting this because I could not find any on the web.
Unfortunately the manuals do not describe the guard removal procedures, why I
do not know. They may not want the guards removed for fear people will run the
implement without the guards, which would be foolish. DO NOT RUN THE IMPLEMENT
WITHOUT THE DRIVELINE GUARDS IN PLACE!! Hopefully having the information about
disassembly and reassembly will prevent people from simply cutting the guards
off to maintain the drivelines, which I have heard of people doing.
Tiller Drive Line
Shortening and Lubrication
As described in my manual, I checked the driveline length as
the driveline was pulled apart and each end was connected to the tractor PTO
shaft or the tiller PTO shaft as the tiller is hooked up to the tractor and
level (as it will be used). The distance between the end of the belled part of
the driveline guard (the end of the tape measure to the right in the picture below) and the end of the opposing
driveline guard is supposed to be 1 inch. Here it was roughly 1/8 of an inch,
so 7/8 of an inch needed to be cut off the rearward (tiller side, left in picture below) driveline
shaft and guard tube. [Also for later, notice the little grease fitting on the
bell housing sticking up right towards the camera, to the lower right of the right end of the tape measure.]
For the tiller end, the distance between the end of the tiller-attached
belled part of the driveline guard and the end of the tractor-attached driveline
guard tube was about 5/8 inch, so 3/8 of an inch needed to be taken off of the
tractor side’s driveline shaft and guard tube to give the 1 inch distance
required.
The stumper was how to remove the driveline guard tubes so I
could cut them and the drive shafts. There are evidently different ways to do
it depending on the driveline you have. My dealer’s mechanic showed me how to
do this one. Notice in the photo above the pencil-sized hole with the white
color inside it that the tape measure is “pointing” towards. In the picture
below I show a ¼ inch socket driver being inserted into this hole, and then
either pound the driver down with your hand or lightly tap with a hammer to press
the white tab down, then try to move the bell housing back a little bit (to the
right in this picture) so the tab does not re-engage. Rotate the driveline
assembly to get to the other two holes/tabs, and do the same with them.
Once they are all loose, the bell guard housing should slip
down the driveline as shown below. Then you’ll see the white plastic ring that
is engaged onto the metal driveline and the driveline guard tube.
If you rotate the ring you’ll see it is split, as shown
below.
You can GENTLY pry the ring apart, ease it out of the metal
channel it sits in and slide it down the shaft, and when the ring is pried
apart the guard tube is released as well, as is shown below. Also, on the white
ring, notice the small U-shaped “tab” facing you. Kind of hard to see here, but
it will be important later. The channel that you can see below on the driveline
that the white ring was locked into will need greased later. That is actually
what the U-shaped “tab” is for – to direct grease from the plastic grease
fitting on the outside of the belled guard housing into the channel on the
driveline, so the plastic ring does not get worn down so fast.
Next,
I used a mitre saw to cut off the 3/8 inch off the plastic guard tube.
Then I used a sawzall with a metal cutting blade to remove
the 3/8 inch from the driveline itself.
I then removed the burrs with a Dremel and small grinding
bit:
After wiping the metal shavings off of the driveshaft (this
was the tractor side and was the outer part of the driveline pair, so both the
inside and outside needed to be cleaned off), I started greasing the
driveshaft. For this shaft, as it is the outer part, only the metal channel
that the white ring fits into was greased, as shown below. [There was a little
residual grease on the outer part of the driveshaft. For rust prevention, I
think it is probably a good idea to have a light coating of grease or oil of
some sort on the outer part of the outer shaft. If I am wrong about this,
hopefully someone will let me know.] Also, when the bell housing is off and the
driveline assembly is on the bench, the grease fittings on the U-joint are
really easy to get to so you may want to take this opportunity to grease those
too if they could use it.
Then the white ring is gently worked back into the channel,
as below. Then the plastic tube is slid back onto the shaft, and locked into
place by lining up the slots on the end of the tube with the “teeth” or tabs
on the white ring (notice in the picture below the tabs on the white ring go
over/on the outside of the guard tube). In the picture below the U-shaped “tab”
is also more visible. [Note: The picture below is from the tiller-side of the
driveline simply because it was a better picture that shows the same as would
be seen for the tractor side regarding the white ring, tab and guard tube. The
equivalent tractor side driveline picture was blurry and hard to see, so I used
this one instead.]
Next, the bell guard housing is put back on. In the picture
below, notice just above where the pencil is pointing to. This is a U-shaped
slot that the U-shaped tab in the picture above on the white ring has to slide
into. If it doesn’t, the bell housing will not go on right and will refuse to
lock in place. When reassembling, to help get the slot lined up with the tab,
you’ll notice that the grease fitting on the outside of the bell housing (identified
in an earlier picture above) is on the outside of the bell housing directly
associated with this slot on the inside of the housing. Line this up with the
U-shaped “tab” on the white ring and slide the bell housing into place. If
things are lined up correctly the bell housing should snap into place. [As a
note, when I talked to the manufacturer they said the grease fitting on the
bell housing did not need greased. The mechanic at the dealer said that it
does, so the white ring does not wear down as the shaft rotates, because the
guard tubes and bell housings and thus the white rings will be held stationary
by the chains on the outside of the guards. Conceptually I agree with the
dealer’s mechanic, so I greased the channel during reassembly as described
above and I’ll grease it using the grease fitting during maintenance after use.]
The picture below is the reassembled tractor side (outer
part) of the driveline pair, sitting on my really messy workbench.
I next did the same thing with the tiller side of the
driveline: disassembled it, cut off the 7/8 of an inch from the guard tube and
the driveshaft, ground the burrs off of the driveshaft and wiped out the metal
shavings. The tiller side is the side that slides into (inside of) the tractor
side of the driveline, therefore the outside of the tiller side driveline needs
to be greased. Since after greasing it is very messy, I decided to work on the
slip clutch assembly before greasing the driveshaft.
The slip clutch assembly was new, as the whole driveline was
new, but the manual states that the slip clutch has to be “run in” or “slipped”
to make sure the parts are not stuck together before using the implement. The
manual states you can either loosen the spring bolts 2 turns and run the tiller
to “slip” the clutch and then retighten
the bolts, or just take it apart to make sure things are not stuck together.
Since I had it on the bench anyway, I decided to take it apart. To disassemble,
first measure the length of the springs. For mine, the distance between the
bottom of the nut and the side of the slip clutch plate (i.e. the length of the
spring) averaged around 1.16 inches, which is in the range the manual called
for. This is the spring length I would use for reassembly.
Once you have the spring length that you’ll use for reassembly
identified, all of the nuts are removed and the slip clutch assembly is taken
apart, as shown in the two pictures below.
This is a new driveline and a new slip clutch, so of course
everything looks great. I cleaned up the parts a little and reassembled the
slip clutch, setting the spring length to 1.16 inches as measured above. When
reassembling, I found that tightening the nuts to 50 in-lbs (not foot-lbs) got
them close, then I finished adjusting them by spring length. As stated in the
manual, the final adjustment comes when I am running the tiller, which I have
not done yet.
Once the slip clutch was reassembled, the shaft of the tiller side of the
driveline was greased. Below is a picture of the greased driveline (probably
went a little heavy on the grease). Before reassembly I greased the metal
channel as well.
Once the driveline shaft was greased the tiller side of the
driveline was reassembled in the same procedure as the reassembly of the
tractor side described above, and then the two halves of the driveline were slid together to reassemble the driveline. The finished driveline, ready for installation on
the tractor, is shown below.
Rotary Mower Drive
Line Shortening and Lubrication
The greasing of the driveline and slip clutch
disassembly/reassembly for the mower (“brushog”) is similar to the tiller as
described above. The driveline guard removal is different (easier) however. For
this driveline, there are three plastic “pins” that hold the bell housing and
the inner guard shaft in place on the inner ring. To remove the pins, use a
screwdriver and turn the pins 90 degrees, as shown below, and then gently pry
the pins straight out. A removed pin is shown in the picture above the one
being turned. The pin goes down through each tab on the inner ring (the inner
ring tab can be seen just underneath the head of the pin in the picture) and
through a corresponding slot in the bell housing and guard tube. The 2 little
tabs on the bottom of the pin slide into a slot on the driveline guard tube and
lock into place when the pin is turned 90 degrees, and this holds the guards in
place.
Once the 3 pins are removed, the guard tube slides out as
shown in the photo below. The slot that one of the pins goes into can be seen
on the guard tube. The bell housing also slides off, and the slot on the bell
housing can also be seen.
Once the bell housing is slid off, the inner ring can be
seen as in the photo below. The inner ring has a split in it and can be gently
lifted out of the channel on the drive shaft that it is sitting in.
The photo below shows the inner ring removed and the metal
channel it sits in.
When reassembling, grease the inner ring and drive shafts as
described above for the tiller. The hardest part in reassembly (other than not
getting grease all over you) is to realign the slots on the inner ring, bell
guard housing and guard tube to get the pin through, but it isn’t that hard.
The disassembly and reassembly of the slip clutch is also the same as described
above, except the spring length for mine was about 1.30 inches (80 in-lbs gets
it close enough to measure).
These are the two drive lines that I have at the moment, and
what I have learned about their maintenance thus far. Hope this info helps.
Happy tractoring!!
