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Congrats on your new 550. I spent a lot of time as a kid on one (my uncle's) and on my dads MF50 and Allis Chalmers 190XT. The 550 is one stout tractor. I have had my own now for 6 years. Hey guys....don't try to stop a spinning PTO with your hand. Mine grabbed ahold of some coveralls I happened to be wearing at the time. I did a 720 degree somersault around the shaft as the pto ripped off my clothes. No serious damage to me, but the clothes weren't clothes any more. The 550 has an on/off clutch handle next to the 3 point hitch control lever. There is a long distance on this lever between fully on and fully off. In between, the clutch plates are just in sliding friction and not fully locked. But that is a function of how well the clutch is adjusted. If the clutch is adjusted too tight, the clutch will be burning up when the brake is engaged. If the lever control arm is just floating between locked on and locked off, and the adjustment is too tight, that PTO is effectively fully engaged. The pto control arm has a detent that will lock the pto in the off postion, engaging a brake. If you want the pto fully off, engage the detent. You may have to adjust the detent and the lock at the base of the lever. The 550 is a pretty powerfull tractor, and most any pto will rip your arm off in a heart beat or two.
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