MF 255 clutch

[Joe Snodgrass]

I had an incident with my 1979 MF 255. I was tilling with a 6' 3 point tiller. I struck part of an old stump that was below the surface that could not be seen....(in a previously tilled garden). Long story short, I had one heck of a time getting the tractor out of gear, the PTO out of gear and the 3 point lifted to get the tiller dislodged from the ground. I would engage the clutch enough to see if I could get any of this done and shut the tractor off 3 times in the process to keep the clutch from overheating. Believe me, I did not ride the clutch anymore than I had to as I did not want to damage anything more than it already had been. Finally I got the PTO disengaged while the tractor was not running, got the tractor out of gear and started the tractor and lifted the tiller from the ground and drove out of the garden. I could smell the clutch was hot and it didn't take much to get it to smell....only a very few seconds maybe 5-10 seconds total in all this process. Anyway.... my question is this: THE TRACTOR SEEMS TO OPERATE FINE. GOES IN AND OUT OF GEAR FINE AND THE CLUTCH DOESN'T SEEM TO SLIP.......BUT AFTER USING IT FOR ABOUT 20-25 MINUTES I CAN OCCASIONALLY SMELL A BURNT CLUTCH TYPE OF SMELL. IS THE TRACTOR OK TO USE OR SHOULD I SEND IT IN AND HAVE IT LOOKED AT? I DON'T WANT TO DAMAGE IT ANY MORE. ARE THERE FLUIDS I SHOULD CHANGE? THIS IS A 2 STAGE CLUTCH TRACTOR.

ANY HELP ANYONE COULD AFFORD ME WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

 

[MF#1]

That smell doesn't go away quickly :-(
Hopefully you didn't ruin it but time will tell. One trick I use with an MF style PTO is when it starts loading up hit the clutch, throttle down, put the PTO lever in "Ground Speed" and trany in Reverse and see if you can "undo/unlock" the problem. It prevents the clutch from burning out by riding it. If you have the hydraulically powered PTO clutch this won't work. Sorry I don't have more info.

 

[Tony in Mass.]

Not always possible when in a pickle like that, but if you just took the pto shaft off the spline, at least the tractor and tiller wouldn't be binding each other. You obviously had a very serious situation there. Time to stop the job, take the tiller off the hitch if the pto wasn't enough, cause a root ball isn't worth the time and expense of splitting a tractor and buying clutch plates etc.

 

[Joe Snodgrass]

If I could have gotten it free from the tractor I would have. I tried to un-hook the tiller from the tractor and it was bound too tight to move anything. Same goes for the PTO shaft......it would not budge either.

 

[Joe Snodgrass]

Thanks to both of you for replies. If I could have moved the PTO lever and gotten it out of gear I would have but everything was too tight and would not move. I even tried to un-hook the tiller and pull out of the garden but everything was bound too tight.......including the PTO shaft.

 

[Anonymous-0]

better check if your free play is ok kind of sounds like your clutch is slipping a little

 

[Joe Snodgrass]

And if it is slipping how do I adjust it? How do I go about adjusting it? Where do I start? I'll check for free play. Thanks in advance. Joe

 

[gbs]

two things if your pto clutch would release when the pedal is pushed all the way down then it should have released when trying to get it out of gear, simple check is to lower the lift arms press in clutch move lift lever to raised position it shouldn't move until the pedal is released slightly that just proves it's adjusted close enough to disengage it can still slip if worn or damaged,second using pto implements doing heavy work without a pto slip clutch is asking for trouble BTDT i've had the tractor clutch pto slip due to sudden over load and it can be costly