Looking for a new hydro tractor, is it normal for the shifting not to be perfect?

[Fallon]

Shelling out a lot of money and having no mention of this behavior from the dealer or the manufacturer is a bit disappointing, especially given the marketing pitch of HSTs. In my mind the industry needs to do a better job here: either communicate this (where in my manual does it mention that turning the steering wheel can help shift into a different range? [I realize that it's only moving the tractor slightly to better allow lining up of the gears]); or, they should look to improve the designs.

My old L3200 HST with a clutch was just as fiddly as my new L4060 with no clutch. Despite being a premium machine with HST+ it's still fiddly to change gears. The 2 stage high/low HST on the HST+ is nice as you can shift that on the fly & it heavily minimizes the need to shift ranges.

They could make easier to shift transmissions just look at shuttle shift or fully synchronized transmission options. But the industry consensus is the extra cost wouldn't provide enough sales benefit to warrant it. I can see that to some degree, you don't shift ranges to much. No clue how much the extra parts & machining for helical cut gears & synchros would be though.

 

[David_Kb7uns]

Started out on a 8N and then a MF-35, shifting ranges is no different then those 2 models. The big problem is people calling a HST an automatic transmission when it is not, it is just another form of a variable speed drive that feeds into the same old straight cut gearbox that tractors have had for the last 75 plus years.

With HST the gears are tied to the wheels directly, so unless you can get the tractor to roll you will need to tap the hydro pedal to get the gears to line up, using the clutch if the Hydro has one is not going to do much to unload the motor in the HST section and to get the rotor to move enough to allow the gears to line up, please explain how a HST design can be made to line the gears up automatically, if there was it would of been done.

The addition of the HST manual dump valve on the VHT in the Kubota RTV accomplished the bleed down when people were failing to hit the brakes hard enough to activate the one connected to the brake pedal and allow the HST to line up, tractors have a bidirectional HST and the pedal ccomplishes this.

If you want clash free shifting the Kubota FST and GST are synchromesh transmissions and shift while moving. I even got so I could shift the Massey 35 using the throttle and clutch while moving. I think some are just expecting too much out of a non automotive drive system and need to come back to reality and how things really work.


David

 

[Sysop]

They could make easier to shift transmissions just look at shuttle shift or fully synchronized transmission options. But the industry consensus is the extra cost wouldn't provide enough sales benefit to warrant it. I can see that to some degree, you don't shift ranges to much. No clue how much the extra parts & machining for helical cut gears & synchros would be though.

They could, but at what cost of strength and weight? Would the gearsets need to be larger to maintain the same strength if cut differently?

I think your last sentence really explains it, the cost of the tooling to create these things. The tooling they have cost a lot of money back when it was created and would likely cost 10-20 times as much to recreate today (or more in some cases of the really old stuff).

 

[David_Kb7uns]

My old L3200 HST with a clutch was just as fiddly as my new L4060 with no clutch. Despite being a premium machine with HST+ it's still fiddly to change gears. The 2 stage high/low HST on the HST+ is nice as you can shift that on the fly & it heavily minimizes the need to shift ranges.

They could make easier to shift transmissions just look at shuttle shift or fully synchronized transmission options. But the industry consensus is the extra cost wouldn't provide enough sales benefit to warrant it. I can see that to some degree, you don't shift ranges to much. No clue how much the extra parts & machining for helical cut gears & synchros would be though.

You need to study these designs more and understand how they work you are wanting things that cannot happen.

How would you put a clutch between the output of the Hydro and the range gear sets and why would you want to when you just take your foot off the pedal to stop the rotation, then since the rotation has stopped how do you keep the transmission spinning so the synchros can bring the gears up to speed so that they can mesh.

Think the straight cut gears and bump the peddle to make them mesh works best.

Need to think this through, the shuttle shifting is not shifting any gears it is routing fluid to the forward clutch or reverse clutch everything in the shuttle is constant mesh and no shifting. Now you see why Kubota came up with the Glide Shift Transmission it has the widest range of any transmission with moving one speed selector no gear selector or range shifting you have 12 forward 8 reverse.

If you notice most vehicles with gear transmissions do not have synchros on 1st and reverse and you need to let the clutch out to get them to go in sometimes.

David

 

[sailorman]

My Kubota 2320 HST has a clutch.

Steve

As does mine .

 

[teg]

...so unless you can get the tractor to roll you will need to tap the hydro pedal to get the gears to line up...

I would say 95% of the time I push the clutch in, my tractor rolls... and lets me shift ranges. That's why I say push the clutch in to make it easier to shift... and yes, sometimes I roll too much and need to push the brakes as well.

Lots of times, when I shut my tractor down, my HST tractor will begin to slowly roll on it's own.