All Entries Tagged With: "PTO"
Power Take-Off Units and Ford’s New Live Drive PTO
For anyone who has ever worked with mechanical equipment in the construction or agricultural industries, the term ‘power take-off’ or PTO is a familiar one. For the rest of us, a short primer is in order to help understand what this device is and how it can be useful to truck owners.
What’s A PTO?
In the simplest terms, a power take-off (PTO) is a device which is coupled to a vehicle’s transmission and which shifts the engine’s power output from turning the driveshaft into instead rotating an external splined shaft to which a wide range of equipment can be attached. Commonly found on farm tractors, a PTO can be used to power anything hydraulic – from a hay baler to a snow blower to a cement mixer to a roll-out. PTOs are extremely useful devices when it comes to powering equipment far off the beaten path, where it might not be possible to run electrical power or practical to store reserves of fuel.
Tow trucks use PTOs to power hydraulic lifts and roll-outs.
Commercial vehicles such as fire trucks, garbage trucks, dump trucks, and tow trucks are excellent examples of PTO units in action in our daily lives.
