350 B WEIGHT LOSS

[Coolhand]

I have a 350B loader with a backhoe attachment. I will be working in soft soil with the backhoe. Can I take off the draw-bar weight and the sprocket weights? I understand this will affect my traction ability. I have not taken off the backhoe attachment to see if there is a PTO cover but where the lever should be there is a hole into the case. Can a previous owner just take the lever out? Thanks for the advice.

[LeonardL]

Hopefully some of these more skilled operators will jump in here and answer your operation questions. I'm not sure I can fully address them. To answer your tech questions though... yes you can remove the weights and yes it will affect your traction to a point. My question would be just how soft is this ground your working on and will you want to keep the backhoe on the machine while doing it? Or, are you wanting to remove the backhoe while working in this area? My point is, you will only gain a few hundred pounds of weight loss by removing the weights. So why bother. If you are going to run it without the backhoe then it might help a bit in keeping you on top of the soft area where you're going to work.

Your PTO lever should not be able to be removed without opening up the transmission first. The only way for that lever to come out without pulling the transmission would be for the associated fork that operates the slider to engage the PTO would have to somehow come loose from the shaft. That would mean you would have loose parts down inside the transmission. You can remove the top shifter cover so you can see down inside the transmission. That would answer a lot of your questions about the machines capability.
I personally have never tried to remove a 350's PTO without having the transmission out of the machine first. I doubt seriously that it can be done. However I have been wrong before.
If this hole you mentioned is standing open, then I would guess that someone has attempted to ascertain if it has PTO or has tried to install a PTO. Who knows why they may have opened it up. What ever the reason, that hole should be plugged again to keep water and debris from entering your transmission.
As I recall, the machines had to be ordered from the factory with the PTO either already installed or at least have the internal parts installed to be able to add PTO to the machine later. Otherwise it has to be opened up to install the associated parts required to have a PTO.

These machines are getting old and have been out in the world for a long time. It is hard to know exactly what has been done to them along their individual journeys. My guess is your machine has been tinkered with at some point. It is getting hard to find one that hasn't been reconfigured and or messed with over the years.
I hope this helps and good luck.