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By Rick beem (Rbeem) on Thursday, November 03, 2011 - 09:12 am:
Dennis,
A the top shaft is a bit weak, yes. The bearing caps (stamped steel) are weak. The "detent" for staying gear under load is weak. The shift forks are prone to cracking and breaking.
The ammount of available "mesh" between the gears is pretty minimal also.
Yes, I'm picking apart the best garden tractor transmission out there, but there are weak areas when you are pushing it past its design limits. (14 hp+) Time and use WILL find these areas.
Everybody has had a gear drive pop out of gear plowing right? Usually when pushing a little hard in 2nd gear in tough ground.
I've built lots of puller transmissions and clutch set-ups, so I am really aiming at SEVERE use. I only like to build things once.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
<font size="-1">Rick, I've talked to you about your setup before, glad its still working out. I finally took the plunge after my 1000 has been sitting for a couple months now with a toasted clutch. Got a complete MWSC setup with red spring and kevlar disk. I didnt get a driver though, was hoping the stock setup was good enough and wanted to save a few bucks. Hopefully that wont bite me later.
I'm wanting to do similar to you as well and put in a slightly performance modded 14hp, I have one out of a 1450 right now, no idea what shape the motor is in the tractor has sat out for 10+yrs. Besides stuff around the house including plowing, the hardest service I think will be in the woods. I'm going to soon build a trailer (I think, havent found one I liked yet) for hauling firewood out of the woods. The terrain is rough with steep hills. I plan on building something pretty heavy duty and that places a lot of weight on the hitch for better traction. Tractor already has larger than stock tires (25x10x12), filled, and small weights on em.
Your making me wonder about the GD... with 14hp, bigger tires, and hauling a lot of weight over rough ground, is this going to be too much for the stock tranny / rear end?
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