OK, I fixed it but want to know why it happened: Range Shift Lever

[beowulf]

Kubota L3410 HST. I decided to cut a road to get to a fence I needed to check and fix. The tractor range gear shift lever was in M when I left the shed for the hill. Once I reached the hill - a decent incline - I tried to shift into L. It went to the middle - neutral - but then would not shift into any gear - not even back to M. I could, however, go in reverse. So I backed down the hill and all the way back to the shed. I remembered that a decade or so ago it did the same thing and someone here provided advice that worked - something about it had slipped out of something or other and I only needed to bang it back in. I can't remember the precise advice but back then it worked beautifully as something popped back in place. I tried all that but it didn't see to work - although I could always tap it back into M, once I tried to shift out of M it would again remain stuck in neutral.

I took off the range gear shift lever cover and looked down into that area with a spotlight. It was kind of intuitive that the shift lever was not between the notched arms for the other gears - so with a crow bar - and gently - I pried and guided the shift lever in between the notched arms where I thought it needed to be and voila it all lined up and worked. So, anyway, I cut the road and all worked well.

But my question is why did this happen in the first place. Thinking back, the tractor had not been in L for some time, so I can't say when this happened - as long as it remained in M, all worked fine. I would like to blame the tractor gremlins, but most likely I did something to cause this. Any ideas?

 

[gladehound]

Is the lever close enough to the seat that you may occasionally lean on it and bend it a little while moving in the seat for visibility etc.?

 

[beowulf]

Thanks for the reply. I have thought about what you suggest, but I don't think so. What is interesting is that it has happened only twice in the 13 years I have had the tractor - once was not long after I got the tractor and then again today - although since it has been in M for a while, I can't say when the problem may have happened, i.e., the issue may have been there for a month while I operated always in M.

I started to wonder if it could have happened when I shifted too abruptly, or did not move the lever enough to the right when taking it out of M, or did not leave the clutch in long enough while shifting. . . don't know, just trying to think about how I could have caused it. A couple of weeks ago I was taking out a small tree and I suppose a branch could have popped under the tractor and hit that area - given what I remember about that task that really doesn't seem likely, but I keep thinking something had to come in contact with that area - unless I caused it by a less than correct shifting. The good news is that it has only happened twice in 13 years and both times I was able to fix it.

 

[JRobyn]

Even after about 8 years and over 500 hours, my L4330 is usually devilishly hard to get to shift between ranges. Sorta like the gears have straight cut and square teeth and no synchros (which I'm pretty sure is exactly the case). I have always been able to get it to finally go with a combination of clutching, rolling back and forth just a bit with the HST, and jiggling the lever with some moderate force. And then once in a while, it just smoothly glides from one range to another.