LOWLANDER MK4 MANURE SPREADER – INSTRUCTION & SPARES MANUAL
5.11 PTO GUARD SAFETY CHAIN FIXING
Care should be taken when fixing the PTO safety chains, by following the guidelines
below you can help avoid unnecessary and possibly expensive damage to the PTO guard
and its component parts.
The purpose of the safety chain is to stop the guarding from rotating during its normal
operation thus preventing foreign objects becoming entangled in it including you!, the
safety chains must be fixed in a position that limits the risk of damage to both operator
and shaft guarding.
Because each application varies there is no one perfect way of fitting, as we are all
aware tractors vary as do machines, some come with ideal fixing points others don't.
The chains are supplied at a set length, this is not the length they have to be used at,
more so the length exists to ensure attachment can be achieved should a suitable
anchor point be some distance from the guard.
In the case where a chain can be shortened it should be, not so much as to then cause
damage by pulling on the guard but enough to stop the whole chain wrapping around
the guard cuffs as the shaft starts to work. This is especially true when fixing wide angle
constant velocity joints, by its nature the shaft will be moving to the left and right as the
tractor turns, in this case we have to leave enough slack on the chain to allow this
movement but at the same time ensuring that the chain does not wrap around the wide
angle cover or pull across its surface causing damage, in an ideal world the chain would
be fixed at 90 degrees to the guard, in effect the only point of contact between guard
and chain would be where the chain is fixed to the guard, getting the anchor point as
close to 90 degrees to the shaft will certainly help prevent damage.
Sometimes with the wide angle shafts it is possible to fix one chain to the other, at the
same time shortening the length of chain as it is done, this can be achieved by taking the
main tube guard chain that is at the wide angle end of the drive shaft and clipping it to
the chain running from the wide angle guard which in turn is anchored as close to 90
degrees from the shaft as is possible, again providing there is some slack left in the
chain, the length of chain can be reduced thus avoiding damage casued by excess chain
wrap around and crossover.
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