1958 MHF 202 stuck in/popping out of reverse

Hello, I just picked up a great 1958 MHF 202 with loader and backhoe. It's old and dirty but works great and has good power. I used it this weekend and am very happy with it but it got stuck in reverse once. It eventually came out OK after I let it sit for a couple of minutes, then it worked fine.

Later as I was backblading after digging out some stumps it popped out of reverse a couple of times. It also popped out of reverse 2 or 3 times when I was backing up a hill to get the backhoe into position to dig away at a portion of stone wall I am opening up.

I searched the forums and read a couple of past comments from Big Dean regarding getting it unstuck from reverse but I can't find anything regarding it popping out of reverse under load. Has anyone had this and/or have any thoughts on what to do about it?

Thanks

- Carl

Try physically holding it in reverse and see if you can prevent it. I forget the name of the part that prevents this. We had a 2 ton farm truck that would do this in 1st gear going down a steep hill when loaded. We learned by keeping the shifter pulled tightly in 1st we could "prevent" the surprised free wheeling. :thumbsup:

I kinda tried that half heartedly because I didn't want to break something by forcing it. It still wanted to pop out of gear but maybe I will try again and go ahead and try to force it a little more. I just don't want to make it worse by breaking something. I will sift through the shop manual first though and see what I can find out.

So far, holding the shifter in reverse seems to work OK. It's a little bit of a pain and I sometimes forget but luckily it doesn't happen every time, just when under a moderate to heavy load. It happens much more frequently in high gear. I don't use reverse in high gear that much normally but I did when using it to move the huge piles of snow that had my mailbox buried in January. My 9hp snowblower was begging for mercy so the 202 came to the rescue.

I can't answer your question specifically, but it does remind me of a snow storm in the winter of 1977. I was trying to get my very beat up and rusted out 1968 Chevy pickup ( 6 cyl. with 3 speed manual trans.) down my long snow covered driveway.
I got stuck, of course, and tried rocking the truck back and forth by shifting from first to reverse repeatedly. Something nasty happened in the transmission, and it locked up solid. I've heard that these transmissions can get into first and reverse at the same time, and perhaps that's what happened. I checked the linkages under the hood, but they were free. The truck would not move.
I wound up dragging the truck off into the weeds with my Ferguson TO-35 . The truck has not moved since 1977, and the weeds have become trees.
If nothing else, I learned that if you mistreat your equipment, it will get even.

WilliamTO-35, sorry about your truck and it slowly returning to nature (as my buddy always described things rusting away in the weeds/woods). You are right about equipment getting even if abused. So far, my tractor has been OK, I just go real easy with it and I keep in mind it's an old dog (53 years old). It's doing well, it just might not work as fast as a new machine but it sure as heck works a lot faster than me with a shovel!