pto wont disengage on my john deere HELP

I have a 1990 john deere 2995 tractor. The PTO wont disengage at all. The shaft turns weather the PTO handle is up or down even under a load from my haybine. When I got the tractor the low side of the torque amplifier slipped and I was told to always use the high side. Now its slipping also every once in a while but not all the time. When it slips I also loose power steering. I am thinking its starving for oil but the oil level is full with new hyguard oil. Yes I have read the manual but it dont state any trouble shooting. Does it sound like all my problems are related or do you think the PTO and high/low problems are separate?

Wish I knew. I got rid of my 4040 for that same reason. I'd had the 2 speed in the quad range replaced a few years earlier,so I don't think there was a connection.
I was chopping,pulled out on a headland,pulled the lever back and it wouldn't stop. I chopped for a few days that was with the lever disengaged and it never even slipped.
I talked to the service manager at the dealer,he didn't know. Thought it might be the valve on the side. Said usually when the little arm in the valve breaks (must happen quite often) it won't engage,but thought it must have gotten crosssed up and was keeping it engaged. I bought the parts,went home and pulled it out and that wasn't it. The tractor had a lot of hours on it,it had cost me a fortune to have it split and have the new two speed put in and I wasn't going to do it again,so I traded it off.

If anybody knows what the cause is,I'd sure like to know.

Justin I am assuming you have a JD 2955. First off the tractor DOES NOT have a torque amplifier. Only IH tractors have that and it works completely differently. Your tractor has a true hydraulically shifted clutch pack or two speed power shift. So when it has a problem, running it in the other range does not really stop the problem is just hides it for a little while. Who ever told you to just do that has cost you big money. You now have other things messed up because of the first problem.

The Hi-Lo problem and the PTO problem are more than likely caused by the same issue. They both share the oil from the charge pump. IF the Hi-Lo clutch pack is slipping/leaking it then starves the PTO and steering. Plus the main hydraulic pump as well.

You should have had the original problem fixed. A Hi-Lo clutch repair is a single split and is not that expensive. The pressure to the steering and PTO was lowered with the problem in the Hi-Lo clutch pack. What probity has happened is that the PTO clutch slipped and warped the separator plates. So the PTO clutch is engaged all of the time. Now you will need to have the Hi-Lo fixed and the PTO clutch pack.

I hope that you did not ruin the Hi-Lo housing. If you had the repair done when it first showed up the plates and separators are less than $200. Even with labor and the other things needed to fix it your bill would been $1200-1500. Now with you running it longer the Hi-Lo pack may not be rebuild-able any more. It gets all worn inside the housing and you can't get it to hold. That complete Hi-Lo assembly is $3400 plus labor. Even if you find good used parts it can easily cost $4-5K to get it fixed now if the pack is shot. That is assuming that the main hydraulic pump is not hurt by being run starving for oil. Plus any metal from the back gets into the main pump and hydraulic system( steering valve, SCV valves,three point valve).

JD 2840, JD 2940, JD 2950, are JD 2955 all have a more complicated hydraulic system that is tied into the drive train because of the Hi-Lo power shift and the hydraulic PTO clutch. So when one system has a problem it can and will cause the other systems to fail. In basic operation they don't seem that different than the Waterloo built tractors but in the field they are more delicate. When you have a problem with them it seems to be more than one system that is affected. They also are harder to work on. I can do a clutch and Hi-Lo on a JD 30 o 40 series tractor in under 12 hours. A Mannheim tractor takes almost double the time and that may not even totally fix the problem.

You need to QUIT USING the tractor like yesterday!!!! The longer you run it the more it is going to cost to fix it. Then you need to have some one that is familiar with these models to work on them. I don't mean familiar with JD. I mean these exact models. They are different than the Waterloo stuff and if you are not real familiar with them you will waste a lot of time and parts/money on getting it fixed. Many JD dealers don't have someone that is real good on them either. You have to have had a few apart to really understand what needs done on them. Some kid fresh out of tech school is going to be lost.

The only way I would repair your tractor would be to go completely through the following: rebuild/replace the Hi-lo pack, repair the PTO clutch, remove and clean the main pump/steering valve/SCV valves/rock shaft controls and piston. Then I could guarantee the job. Not doing the cleaning up of the main pump/steering valve/SCV valves/rock shaft controls and piston just will mean they will fail in the future because of the junk/metal that is in them because of the problems down stream from them. I know the oil is filtered but it is before the PTO and Hi-Lo pack. When they fail if you run the tractor long it will put the junk/metal in the whole system. I have tried to cut corners on them to save guys money. It has never worked. The tractor always has had a failure later that was caused by the original issue.

I know I sound terrible on this but I could record this song and play it fifty times in my life when some one has the problems you have. I would NEVER buy one of the models I listed that I did not know the tractor from day one in its life. There are too many of them that have had problems and just been fixed good enough to have everything work long enough to sell. The last one I did the guy bought it at a consignment sale off a equipment jockey. He used it 5 hours moving round bales. The hydraulic stopped working. It took three filters to get the tractor drove to the barns on to my trailer. The total repair bill was over 10K. He has used it for three years with zero issues. I will guarantee you that if I had not cleaned the whole system out he would not have gotten six months out of it.

Let us know how you fair in fixing the problem.

rrlund: the JD 4040 and JD 2955 are totally different tractors. About the only common thing on them is that they both are Green and Yellow. The JD 4040 is a Waterloo Ia designed and built tractor. The JD 2955 is Mannheim Germany designed and built tractor.

Your problem could have been the control valve but that is easy to check with hydraulic gauges. Your service guy was either lazy or incompetent. That tractor is not hard to work on or diagnose.

Two speed split and repair without the main clutch would usually cost under $1500. I have seen a few with a little more problems but even them cost under $2500. I just did both the main clutch and Hi-Lo on a JD 4640. The bill was under $3000.

Yeah it is a 2955. My father in law bought a new tractor and gave me this one. Right before he did he had the dealership flush out the hydraulic fluid. They said it looked like there was brake lining fragments on the sump filter. but I havent used the tractor 2 hours and now this problem has occurred.

If they found much of the brake fiber on the suction screen than it is brake repair time. You should not have hurt it too much if you just ran it two hours. The problems you described happened in just the two hours or where they what was going on while your FIL owned the tractor??? If they happened over a longer period of time then you could still have bigger issues.

I would drain the oil my self and pull the sump screen an look at it. I am willing to bet that it is completely stopped up. If this is the case you still may have done some serious damage to it. NEVER run a JD if you find many brake fibers in the sump screen. You can damage the complete hydraulic system. If the brake fibers are in the sump screen the brake are shot any way so fix them before anything else is ruined. Also fix that Hi-lo issue too. It can starve the complete hydraulic system as well.

Moral of the story. JD Mannheim built tractors need to be watched for hydraulic issues an fixed CORRECTLY/QUICKLY when they first appear or you will be spending big money down the road.

Get us a few more details and we will try to help all we can.

1st of all. Don't ever use an IH term such as
torque amp in the same sentence. As JD.
The service manual , not the operator's manual
shows the pto test ports and where to measure pto
clutch and pto brake pressure.

Justin SE IOWA
Everything that JDseller stated is correct. There's a chance that the pto control valve linkage failed but the brake material in sump screen and slipping Hi-Lo needs to be repaired.

It cost me $3500 back in 1999 just to replace the two speed. Incompetent? Maybe,but that's the kind of stuff that sent me away from Deere. Same shop where I took the power steering unit off my 1020,told him I'd checked it according to what the service manager at one of their other locations told me to. Told him just what it was doing. It was done a few days later. Got it home,put it on,no change. Called them,played "try this" all afternoon. Finally just before closing he let me talk to the mechanic who worked on it. He told me all he did was put a seal kit in it. I had already paid the bill. They didn't give me any credit toward the real repair when they were done.

But........I was supposed to keep taking that kind of abuse. Never mind,don't get me started.

rrlund
Being a former JD dealer service manager I've had experience with incompetent so-called technicians working under me. It's very difficult to check the operation of a component without the tractor.You shouldn't blame the manufacturer for very poor dealer employees but blame the dealer. I do think the dealer should have repaired your steering valve correctly. I own JD,Kubota & Ford tractors and they all have their own problems.

I farmed with JD 70 series and some new 40 series. They were good. Now retired only mowing and loader tractor your problemes make my DC cases look better all the time!! Simplest tractor for the job seems to be best in this ecomony.

I don't blame the products,but anymore,I might as well be trying to farm with Massey Harris or Silver King as with Deere. But if even the super store would open a location close to home,I'd go back to them. You can't imagine the withdrawl I went through when I switched to a different brand. It lasted hardcore for at least two years. I was so tempted to go back and take the abuse just to have them back,you can't imagine. But good service from another brand was just too good to give up.
I just can't see driving forty miles one way to any location for service like I was getting.
I'm telling you,it tore my heart out to go somewhere else. That company is well on its way to going the way of International Harvester and General Motors I'm sorry to say if somebody at the top doesn't crack down. Worship of a brand name doesn't get the cattle fed,and others are going to realize it eventually.

(quoted from post at 10:38:04 09/02/12)That company is well on its way to going the way of International Harvester and General Motors I'm sorry to say if somebody at the top doesn't crack down. Worship of a brand name doesn't get the cattle fed,and others are going to realize it eventually.

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I agree. I don't like the new plastic,electronic operated new JD tractors or any brand for that matter.