RTV 900 difficult to change selector

[JOHNTHOMAS]

I had to stop on a steep incline and tried to shift to reverse, couldn't get it to shift and finally just had to kill the engine to get it in neutral. Had my foot firmly on the brake but couldn't get it out of gear.

Not being there and not positive but I believe that if you had let it roll the least bit and maybe pumping brake it would have done it. When I hold brake pedal down I can feel it releasing air/fluid and then the pedal goes down further. The brakes now do what the knob on the older models did so no, don't need or want knob.

 

[Robert Payne]

Thanks all. It seems that giving it a squirt of fuel to give the engine a quick rev is the most consistent remedy.

 

[sunnyside360]

I had to stop on a steep incline and tried to shift to reverse, couldn't get it to shift and finally just had to kill the engine to get it in neutral. Had my foot firmly on the brake but couldn't get it out of gear.

I had exact same problem yesterday and had to switch off the engine to shift from reverse to forward. I believe some of these machines exhibit this worse than others. I heard there is a Kubota Service Bulletin out for this. Plan to speak to the dealer sometime in near future.

 

[buickanddeere]

Read the operator's manual while stomping on the brake pedal. Don't try shifting with the driveline wound up tight and binding while making a turn .

 

[sunnyside360]

Read the operator's manual while stomping on the brake pedal.

Believe me this is not an issue of not reading the Op Manual. Something is not adjusted correctly on my machine.

 

[Kanook]

Being stuck in gear and difficult to impossible to shift into "N" without killing the engine is an issue that has plagued the RTV since the getgo. It is a result of torque still being applied to the transmission as when stopping on an incline or as is often the case when plowing snow. The original RTV (like my 04 model) had no solution other than fine tuning the shifting and playing with the 'creep' (search this forum for detail). Around 06 they added the pressure relief knob on the dash which if adjusted correctly greatly improved the shifting issue. Later models moved the pressure relief to the break pedal and again the shifting issue is greatly improved provided it is adjusted correctly. Too bad Kubota didn't see it necessary to permanently fix this issue in the recent new models.

 

[sunnyside360]

Later models moved the pressure relief to the break pedal and again the shifting issue is greatly improved provided it is adjusted correctly. Too bad Kubota didn't see it necessary to permanently fix this issue in the recent new models.

Foot pressure applied to the brake pedal does nothing to help with difficult shifting on my machine. I'm hoping it is just an adjustment on the brake pedal. I'd be happy to adjust the brake pedal if someone could describe the procedure.

 

[TravisD]

Apparently there's a TSB out for this, but I haven't actually seen it. I did come across pics on another forum where someone has supposedly done what the bulletin calls for, which is some Zip-tie engineering.

It seems that the cable that links the brake to the relief valve is held in place by just a grommet. It does seem to wiggle a bit, and I could see how it could become mis-aligned with the rest of the bracket. Supposedly the official fix is to zip-tie it in place, and since I had some zip-ties handy, I figured I'd give it a shot.



I took the RTV-900 for a quick test drive and **** if it didn't seem to shift better! I'll see how it does over time, but my perception is that it was much better.

 

[buickanddeere]

One story about the 900 series funky shifting was to do with lawsuits. Operators were getting into runway situations when traveling uphill or downhill . So Kubota added the "transmission brake". Then Kunota was in another lawsuit because of loss of control or noses snaked against the windshield because the wheels would nearly lockup if the operator completly removed their foot from the throttle.
There are several articles about tinkering with the transmission relief valve setting .