Brake on WD PTO shaft

I put a nice brush hog on my WD and the tractor handles like nothing but when I want to shift to any other gear, no way, so does anyone know a way of shifting this machine smoothly while the PTO is turning or is my "disc brake assembly on the PTO shaft" idea going to come to fruition?

You need to put and over-running clutch on the bushog. This will let the mower freewheel when you push the clutch and not push the tractor.

truckerfarmer, thanks for your explanation. Hadn't occurred to me that the hand clutch worked that way. I continue to be amazed at and grateful for this forum.

Dusty MI wrote: The hand clutch runs in oil, which causes a lot of drag, there for when you shift you need to do it quickly, and it is very difficult to go from neutral into any gear.

After a little run time the oil don't drag much.Use my hand clutch always when Bush hogging with no issues

Mine won't shift either!---They are not really set up for that kind of use. Over running clutch on pto is the only way to go. Then shifting is no problem, as stated earlier. ---Don't know how the D series work. 190 needs the over running clutch, at least the ones my buddy has do. --- I tried one of my wd-45's once and after a couple tries I got smoke from around the transmission shifter, so never used the hand jobber since. ---Locked that sucker down on all my wd and wd-45's so nobody gets hurt trying to use them. ---- haven't had any problems since. tractors work great!

drain the 90 wt out of the hand clutch and replace with HYTrans oil. leave the 90wt in the transmition you can shirt gears with the hand clutch and never grind a gear. you will have to push the foot clutch in to shift from neutral to any gear. once it ina gear you release the hand clutch smoothly shift from whatever gear you in to the one you want. I do it all the time using the loader and the snow blower. you cant be moving when you do this so come to a complete stop. if you screw up push the clutch in raise the hyd lever itll stop the pto from running much quicker than letting it spin down and start over.

All your replies are appreciated. Thank you. 👍

Use the hand clutch on my 45 all the time with the bush hog.

If you get smoke coming out of the shifter boot, you have something seriously wrong. Did you have enough fluid in there? It is a wet clutch.

For those of you saying the hand clutch is not meant for shifting the transmission, think about that for a minute, a clutch is a clutch. Wet or dry they both do the same thing, disengage power!
The hand clutch was Allis Chalmers answer to live power. Instead of a 2 stage clutch, they went with 2 single stage clutches. With the hand clutch being a wet clutch, it is ideal for the roto baler or combine because you can slip a wet clutch at full power without burning it up. You slip a dry clutch long enough you will burn it up in short order.
If you have problems with the hand clutch, it may be in need of adjustment.
On my WD and my WD45 I use the hand clutch all the time for shifting gears, especially the WD with the loader on for moving snow. If I had to use only the foot clutch for loader work, it would make moving snow a very tedious job. Also works great for shifting into road gear. Slap the hand clutch forward, push the throttle up about 1/2 way, slip the tranny into 4th gear, pull the hand clutch back, drop the throttle wide open and away I go. Maybe it's my years of slapping gears in a big rig without a clutch, but syncing engine speed to transmission speed makes shifting a whole lot easier than grinding gears.
I'll get off my soapbox now.

Edited by truckerfarmer - 04 Apr 2019 at 10:30pm

When I start my WD, usually first compression stroke, I have the hand clutch forward (disengaged), push in the foot clutch and put it in gear, release the foot clutch and there is some grab which lasts about a 1/4 of a second, barely pull back on the hand clutch and a pinky finger of pressure and grabs like it should. Then pull the HC all the way back, sweet. Just need the overrun clutch. PTO brake.....what was I thinkin?

The reason that the hand clutch runs in oil is that they are made to be slipped, I don't remember having ours grab.

The beauty of the hand clutch running in oil is its smoothness.......should 

If the hand clutch is grabby you need to put oil in it. The hand clutch and transmition only share oil thru the bearing there is not a pass through between the two it's very possible for the clutch to be low enough to be running dry and have oil in the transmition.

ac fleet wrote: The hand clutches are too grabby for any serious use, adjusted or not.

Probably adjustment. I had one that was very grabby once. I also heard that some of the newer clutch material some rebuilders use is grabby but don't quote me.