Howard Roto-vator

[fordforce]

Was working up the garden and suddenly the pto slipped off my rotovator and was flailing about.
I tried to find nut with a metal detector but no luck.
So I took a measurement of the threaded end of the shaft where the nut was.
Measures.900"
I Don't know but I think its metric.
7/8" would be .875"
Any mill wrights out there that could tell me what size nut I'm looking for on the pto shaft.

 

[Jim.ME]

From the rusty looks this didn't just happen, did it?

Thread pitch as well as dimension is needed to match a nut to a thread. Not knowing what you measured with, where, or how; a guess would be your .900" is good for 24mm diameter, if you were on top of the threads (major diameter). As a guess looking at the picture the pitch might be 2.5 or 3 (coarse). Lacking inch and metric pitch gauges to confirm the pitch, go to a bolt supply house and buy 1 each of the cheapest M24 nuts, with coarse pitches, to try on the shaft threads. Once the pitch is confirmed it will narrow the choices, then you can get a good grade nut for it. It might have been a flanged locking nut or something else. That is the best I can do for you using the info provided.

Have you Googled Howard Rotavator and tried calling one of the vendors that the search finds that advertise they sell Howard parts? Guy Machinery is one that came up, when I searched. I don't know a thing about them beyond that, so won't say good or bad.

 

[fordforce]

Hi Jim.
No, lost the nut a year ago.
I will try for a nut and see if i can get this running.
If i cant get a nut i may have to just weld a bigger nut on the shaft and go from there.
Thanks so much for the info.

 

[Jim.ME]

(quoted from post at 18:30:08 06/04/20) Hi Jim.
No, lost the nut a year ago.
I will try for a nut and see if i can get this running.
If i cant get a nut i may have to just weld a bigger nut on the shaft and go from there.
Thanks so much for the info.

Do you have a Fastenal or other bolt supplier near you? Many tractor dealers have pretty good selections of metric and SAE hardware now as well. If so load the tiller and take with you. They may have pitch gauges to help confirm what it is. The threads don't look bad in your picture. Welding a bigger nut on it will just ruin things. It looks like the shaft needs to pull out some. There are probably bearings in there that get held in place when the yoke is tight on the shaft, so you need the right nut so you can tighten it to get things in place. Spend the time to do it right.