4440 tractor and batwing problem.

[Mike Shuler]

O.K., Heres my dilema. My brother bought a new 15ft. Woods heavy duty batwing mower. We spent hours setting it up. It was greased,(even the splines where the shaft telescopes), and all the gear oil levels are right. The distance from the end of the PTO and draw bar hole center is 14 inches just like the manual says. Manual even says plus or minus 1 inch. The problem is, we have twisted the shaft between where it moves forward and back on the tongue of the mower and the gearbox. It also bent the 540PTO shaft on the tractor. It has less than 6 hours of cutting time and we are only mowing weeds that are about 18 inches high. We are also cutting with a 10ft. Woods mower and have not had a single issue with it. Could the splined shaft be too soft? Has anyone else had issues like this? Seems like the shaft stretches out when making a turn then twists when it is extended, the dosen"t want to slide in and bends.

 

[DEEREMEYER1]

Are you mowing through any ditches, where there is a lot of bending between the tractor and shredder vertically? I've seen that happen before with grain carts. Everything is hunky-dory as long as you're on flat and level ground, but go through a low spot or ditch where the tractor and cart tilt toward each other and the shaft collapses all the way and things have to bend. That would be my guess...

 

[Mike Shuler]

Not any ditches,but the ocassional low spot that will make the mower do that. Funny thing is that I am mowing beside him with a smaller mower. Same field, same weeds. The intermediate shaft on my mower is tubular in style and have not had any issues at all. The batwing shaft is round and splined, and the splines seem soft. You could file them really easy. Maybe it's a safety feature made to go before you bend the shaft on the tractor, but I thought thats what the slip clutches are for... I don't know. I am about ready to make a heavier shaft for it of trade it in on a Deere.

 

[DEEREMEYER1]

It's possible that it's not hard enough or something. Slip clutches are expensive, but of course drivelines are too. It's hard telling these days. Anything is possible. But you SHOULD go green, lol.

 

[tim s]

15 ft mowers with 540 shafts are a bad combination to start with, the shafts will not deal with the torq, this is one of the reasons the larger HP tractors have 1,000 RPM only shafts, but even thou, it should have dealt with what you described,,maybe too sharp of turns....

 

[DEEREMEYER1]

I was kind of thinking the same thing. That's a lot of mower to run with a 540 shaft.

 

[Mike Shuler]

Tim, he was making pretty wide turns. My uncle has been mowing with a 4440 and a 15ft. rhino and has no issues. It also has a 540 shaft. Ia am thinking of getting the shaft Burnelled and see what the factory spec is.

 

[buickanddeere]

Is there any reason why the superior 1000rpm drive is being avoided?

 

[tim s]

Yes, B&D, I was wondering the same thing, I didn't think they even offered them in 540 anymore...

 

[Craig C]

A 4440 that is RIGHT will twist its own 540 shaft off at the snap ring. It will do it at about 1700rpm!

 

[MSM]

Make sure the slip clutches are"slipping". I usually loosen mine up in the spring,and put the mower in some heavy grass and let them slip alittle,then reset them. They tend to rust up and won't slip when overloaded and will wring off or bend the driveline.

 

[Ray]

Probably 90% of mowers are 540 pto.It's odd to see one with 1000.The 1000 hurts resale.

 

[Ray]

I bought a new woods HD 15 a few years ago.It was nothing but trouble from day one.The shear bolt would vibrate and fall out and the whole clutch assembly would fall off.That was on the first round.The rod that goes from the front on the hitch to the rear frame assembly broke twice.The hard tire dual wheel assembly broke off.They made a newer improved version,but we had to buy it.after a year we traded it on a new John Deere mower.Haven't had the first problem with it.We had a 4440 on both and now use a 6410.It was a 540 mower,that's all you see around here.

 

[tim s]

It's just the opposite around here Ray, big 540 mowers sell cheap..One of my customers had a 540 15ft Deere that they pulled with an old Massey 1085, then they got a 4440 and couldn't keep u-joints in it, they went to a lot of work upgrading the shafts but still had trouble, then they traded for a 1000 RPM mower and all was well after that...and I agree the slip clutches need loosened up and slipped a bit at the start of the season. We run a 20ft 2018 Deere with a 4960 and do that each year.

 

[Ray]

We have used 540 mowers for probably 40 years and never had a pto problem.I would think it's more of an abuse problem than a 540 to 1000 issue.We mow mostly grass,maybe were not pulling as hard as you are.

 

[tim s]

Maybe, but there is a lot of solid reasoning for going with the 1000 RPM on large equipment requiring high HP.

 

[FactoryFarmer]

I doubt abuse is a problem in this case, we bought a brand new Woods at the begging of the summer and have been abusing it severely behind a 6420 mowing ditches and have no issues at all.

 

[buickanddeere]

A 6420 with a good tail wind will make 103 pto
HP. Any old 4440 was rated at 130pto HP but most
dyno higher, much higher.
Try the Woods mower with 1-1/2 times more power
and get back to us on that abuse and durability
issue.

 

[Mike Aylward]

It's exactly the opposite in my area, Ray. People know the 1000 shaft works better and lasts longer. A 540 rpm cutter around here is a white elephant. Mike

 

[Cliff Nelson]

I agree. It is a lot easier on the pto gears in the tractor to use 1000 rpm. Also, check the hP rating on the 540 shaft on the mower. There will be nearly twice the torque on the shaft at 540 than at 1000.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

I bought a new light duty 2515 Bush Hog, and have used it about three seasons. I purposely bought 540. The tractor I had to run it with when I bought it was a 200+HP large 1000 RPM only PTO. I had figured running the tractor at 11-1200 engine RPM, or whatever it was, I can't remember now, would work. And it did. If I had bought a 1000 RPM mower I would have had to run the tractor at or near rated speed, and would have been exceeding the mowers' driveline rating by far.

 

[roger landers]

My first guess , that the pto shafts are to long . Both the outer and inner need to be shortened so if you go into a dip or something similiar ,the shaft has room to shorten.An over long pto will bend a pto shaft pretty easy ,as something has to "give"
If this isnt your problem , the others have answered the torque part 540 v 1000 pto speed pretty well.

 

[Stuart]

I have Woods batwing mower and put 200 hp to it and use the crap out of it and it stands up great. Everything is slip clutch protected and blades swing back when striking an obstacle.

 

[Mike Shuler]

What size shaft are you running?

 

[Mike Shuler]

Around here, 1000 rpm shafts are rare. The 540 shaft machines hold higher resale value. The dealer told us that the heavy duty mower with the 540 shaft would handle our 4440. I am starting to think he was wrong. We had no intention of trading it in down the road, so we probably should of went 1000 rpm shaft. No other farmers in our area have had this issue with thir 4440's and mowers, but they are not running a Woods either.

 

[tim s]

The Woods mowers are not a bad mower,,and I'm still trying to figure what bent the tractor shaft??? As others have stated a 4440 can be twisting 180Hp very easily,,all it takes is about 1/2 turn or so on the smoke screw,,about all of them around here are in that area,,that along with the 540 not dealing with the extra power, is working against you,,Darn it...

 

[Tx Jim]

(quoted from post at 15:30:45 08/28/12) Make sure the slip clutches are"slipping". I usually loosen mine up in the spring,and put the mower in some heavy grass and let them slip alittle,then reset them. They tend to rust up and won't slip when overloaded and will wring off or bend the driveline.

I agree with the slip clutch being too tight.

 

[larryanderson]

Proper lenght would be my first guess as we have a 15 ft batwing and mow miles of ditchs with no major problems.It is funny how people want to discount certain models of tractors for not having 540PTO[4640etc.] when in reality most pieces of equiptment that require 100 H.P. are 1000 rpm and usually dont have many problems.Quick couplers are one of the hardest things on PTO shafts and operater error is close.

 

[johndeerefan]

Sounds like a combination of the shaft being too long and turning too sharp. I have no experience with a woods, but my JD 4000 pulling the 540 rpm bush hog 15' batwing works great. There is about 6" of travel in the shaft to hook it to the pto.

My experience with the slip clutches are once you smoke the discs good, you can never keep them tight enough to not slip all the time. It's like they glaze over. I always change the clutch discs immediately after I smoke them. I know they are there to protect the equipment, but what I am talking about is them slipping all the time just trimming the pasture grass (which is thin and not very tall). With new clutches, I can cut just about anything without any damage.

 

[robersw]

Man, after reading all of this, I am scared to go put the 15' bushhog behind my 4440 again. It is a 540 rpm, because it was around before I got the 4440, but it runs it great and have had no problems for several years.

 

[Mike Shuler]

I can"t say this enough... it is definately not turning too sharp. The draw bar is set exactly to the Woods manual spec at 14 inches from the end of the tractor pto shaft to the center of the hole. This is why I can"t figure it out... but I real close to trading in on a Deere with a 1,000 RPM shaft. I have checked the operator end of things several times cause mor times than not, it is usualy operator error. Trust me, it"s not. Either Woods has a bad bunch of shafts or thier manual fails to mention that there might be a lenghth adjustment in the shaft, (much like some of the German equipment like Kuhn on thier 3 point spreaders). I am leaning to the bad shafts. The gearbox turns free by hand, so it has to be a torque issue on the shaft and it isn"t holding up. Just my thinking...

 

[DEEREMEYER1]

I wouldn't buy a 15-foot shredder with 540.

 

[DEEREMEYER1]

I wouldn't buy a 15-foot shredder with 540.

 

[Lee B]

I'm with your first assumption, it doesn't want to slide back in under torque and instead twists. Of course the metal is too soft if this is happening, but would a longer internal spline be a cure for this? It may be that it's binding due to the fact that there is not enough shaft inboard of the outside spline. Or it needs a longer driving section of splines. Or multiple sections that drive the internal splined shaft? Anything to help with that alignment might get you going again. A PTO extension might help even if it does make your geometry NOT square with the world or 'proper' with the Woods instructions. Our BushHog always needed an extra 14 inches or so of tractor PTO shaft to get the $$Bondioli/Pavesi$$ CV Ujoint on top of the hitch pin where it ought to be in the first place anyway. What good is an 80 degree CV Ujoint if you don't make full use of it and if you get it turned to 80 degrees, you are turning way, way too sharp to begin with.

Here it's 1000 RPM with 20 footers or forget about it. Heavy weeds up to the door handles at times - 1 to 2 MPH is not uncommon with those, but most of the knee high stuff and smaller goes down at 8 MPH. We feed them with 80 to 150 HP tractors and have no troubles other than tossing the occasional rock an eighth of a mile or so. The late John Deere mowers keep them under the wings and will only let them out 'foul ball' style often straight up and so weak they won't even bounce off the mower, they have dual blades and that might play a big part in the rock abatement policy they seem to have built in. The early BushHog sends em low, smokin hot, and very, very far. I swear, 300 yards before the first bounce and after that they just seem to speed up or come apart completely due to the revs put on them from the bouncing. That same early BushHog has 540 shafts on all the gearboxes, but a 540 to 1000 driveline. Rather a 1000 RPM input to 540 outlet PTO driveline. Between the boxes, it's all 540 couplers and shafts even though they are turning a bit faster than that. Engines rarely see 1,900 so they are not running at rated 1,000 RPM to begin with, nobody seems to want to go there and we all happy with that.