MF1540 shifter issue;

jimbob_rebel · Apr 25, 2013

I won't have a lot of info on this until I have a day off, but I was moving some gravel and went to get reverse and while it felt like the shifter hit reverse, it made a grinding noise. Well, I decided to pack it in and park until I could investigate. It went into foward fine and I parked it in the shed. In the course of troubleshooting this issue, the shifter seemed to be getting looser and will not make either detent. I'm thinking, hoping, it's a loose pin or bolt and that someone on here reading this has had a similar problem and can point me in the right direction. By the way, it's a synchro-shuttle with less than 200 hours on it.

toy · May 1, 2013

jimbob_rebel said:
I won't have a lot of info on this until I have a day off, but I was moving some gravel and went to get reverse and while it felt like the shifter hit reverse, it made a grinding noise. Well, I decided to pack it in and park until I could investigate. It went into foward fine and I parked it in the shed. In the course of troubleshooting this issue, the shifter seemed to be getting looser and will not make either detent. I'm thinking, hoping, it's a loose pin or bolt and that someone on here reading this has had a similar problem and can point me in the right direction. By the way, it's a synchro-shuttle with less than 200 hours on it.

I don't have a 1540 mf, but I was wondering if you have figured it out yet and if so give us an update.

jimbob_rebel · May 2, 2013

I'm not much closer...I've removed some covers to watch the linkage. Two universal joints that I can see look to be solid. I'm going to check my clutch free play since that's the only other thing I can think to do.

jimbob_rebel · May 4, 2013

Well, I got to looking through my owners manual...and it says that normal free play for the clutch is 7/8 to 1 1/8 inches. It also said that freeplay would diminish with use. I had something like 4 inches of freeplay. I adjusted it to about an inch and my problem ALMOST vanished. It was though, a dramatic improvement. Beforehand, I couldn't shift to foward or reverse. I'll be going out again tomorrow with a tape measure and see if fine tuning that adjustment a little bit won't make my problem vanish. I wan't worried at all about freeplay because I had plenty and according to the manual; " Through use, clutch free-play will be reduced." Is that a freaking typo or what?

MFRED · May 5, 2013

Not a typo if you ride the clutch. It will go the opposite way. Which is not good by the way. Normal use the freeplay will increase like yours did.

jimbob_rebel · May 6, 2013

Thanx MRED, I'll keep that in mind. Well, having set my freeplay at 1", hiting reverse feels normal and hitting foward feels normal about 80% of the time, the other 20% the shifter binds when trying to hit foward. I can sit poarked and shift back and forth with no error, but after travelling is when the binding issue comes up. I'm thinking it's about time to send her to the shop.