Bent PTO Shaft Blues

[OldFart187]

My Ferguson TO30 is similar to several Ford tractors so I'm posting this here too.

I have a bent PTO shaft. Although I bought a new shaft assembly, there seems to be some damage to the front bearing support. Here's the story:

I discovered the bent shaft after removing it to repair the hydraulic pump. On installation, the pump/cover wouldn't move forward the last 1/4". It hung up on the right side between the side tang of the front PTO bearing support and the transmission case around the up-down pressure tube. The interference is about 1/16 - 1/8", possibly due to a bent PTO bearing support or base, the bulkhead between the transmission and pump housing cavity. It would only take a tiny deformation there to throw things off.

The front PTO bearing housing side tangs are a slip fit into the inside vertical faces of the pump ends. If I installed 0.040 shim washers under the right side bolts of the PTO support housing it would shift the tangs 0.060 to the left. That might do the job. Another method would be to grind off 0.060 from the right tang and somehow put a 0.060 shim on the left side.

Any thoughts?

On an aside, I removed the front PTO bearing support but it won't go back in because the shaft end (with the male cone of the tapered roller bearing) dropped and won't go back to the center of the housing bore. I assume it's just a matter of getting the gearbox gears in mesh. Or is it?

 

[Hobo,NC]

To align the PTO support I run a rope/wire under the countershaft and lift it up.

 

[OldFart187]

My old tractor buddy found an interesting way to get the rear part of the countershaft centered. I had removed the shift cover to see the gears and he stuck pry bars between the front gear sets to force the countershaft forward. That centered the front bearing and we were able to get the front PTO shaft support in.