 Hello everybody. I'm Dr. Jesse LePred, and I'm the safety coordinator for the Alabama Co-operative Extension System. I do farm and green industry safety training for the state of Alabama, and we're here today at the beautiful E.V. Smith Research Center. And we have Mr. Greg Paik here, who is the Director of the Experiment Station. And the subject for today is how to install and maintain your PTO shield on a tractor. Take it away, Greg. Thank you, Dr. LePred. Today we're going to demonstrate the proper installation of a PTO shaft cover for safety. To do this, we'll use a couple of tools. This is very simple operation that requires a flat head screwdriver and a good pair of wire pliers. There are several components that make up the safety system on this. One, and first is the outer shaft cover. And you will notice that on this shaft cover there are warning decals. This one says danger rotating driveline. And this indicates that this piece of equipment will be rotating when the PTO is engaged. Secondly, on the inside shaft, the PTO shaft, you will see a sticker that says danger, guard missing, do not operate. As long as the PTO shaft cover is in place, this sticker will be hidden. If it is visible, then this piece of equipment would not be safe to operate. So to do this today, we will use two shaft covers, an outer cover and an inner cover. Two locking collars, one for each end and a chain. So to begin, we will take the inner PTO shaft and the locking collars. Two locking collars and covers are made of plastic. They are very malleable, very easy to move and install. And you simply slide the locking collar over the PTO shaft. You will notice that there is a groove that is machined into the end of the yoke of the PTO shaft. That groove serves to hold the locking collar in place. You will also notice that there are tabs on the locking collar. And this one has three. These tabs need to be installed such that the bevel part of the tab is pointing away from the PTO yoke. So once we have this locking collar installed, we simply slide it into the PTO shaft cover and align these tabs with preset holes in the cover. Once we have the tabs aligned, we simply take the flat head screwdriver and force the tabs to rotate to the side. Once the tab is rotated, it is locked into place with this red tab on the outer cover. Simply put it into place and you hear the click and that prevents the locking collar from rotating during operation. At that point, the PTO shaft can spin while the outer cover remains still. To the other side, it is an exact same operation. We take the locking collar, slide it onto the yoke, take the PTO shaft, slide it into the cover, align the tabs and lock them into place. Once they are locked into place, again, we will close the red tab with a click and that shaft is locked into place as well. The next thing to do is to install the safety chain. On the outer cover, there are tabs that allow the safety chain to be attached to the plastic cover. Simply slide it in and with your pliers, close the end of the loop. Once the loop is closed, it can be attached to the tractor or the implement and used to hold the outer shaft cover in place while the PTO shaft turns. These PTO shaft covers are made of plastic, ABS plastic. They are very easy to install and once they are installed, there is no reason to ever take them off. The only reason that you would remove this cover is if it were damaged and had to be replaced or if the PTO shaft itself has to be replaced. Everything that you need to do for maintenance can be accomplished through holes in the outer shaft cover. If you will notice, there is a round hole that allows access to the grease fitting in the yoke itself. All you have to do is align that grease fitting with the hole, take the grease gun, attach it and pump your grease. There is also a grease fitting for the bearing that goes on the shaft cover itself. Simply place the grease gun onto that fitting on the red tab and pump grease. Being able to do that will allow you to maintain this system without having to take it off for any reason. Once you have it completely installed, simply imagine aligning the PTO shaft such that the outer cover slides over the inner cover and you want to ensure that the cover will slide completely across the inside cover. At that point, this PTO shaft and its cover are ready to use. Today we learned how to put a PTO shield on a PTO shaft correctly and how to maintain it. That will save thousands of lives of farmers that will just follow these directions. I want to provide a special thanks to Mr. Gregg Pate who did a great job showing you how to do that. For further information on any other subject on farm safety, go to our website which is www.aces.edu.farm safety. Everybody have a great day.