Quick, but fuel thirsty.

[prs]

I've only had my 4231 in low range 3x, in a few yrs, when I was pushing logs with the slip scoop, and once towing my equipment trailer (about 4k lbs), never used low mowing, seems like you'd only need it on the steepest hills. I bought my machine with cable broken to the rear axle so switching to low requires you to put lever in low, then get off walk around back and reach in above the weights and manually push the link age putting the rear in low . switching back to high is easy, just flip the lever and both go to hi.., as the broken cable works fine in push mode.

The dealer's set-up man advised to use this combination at or near full engine speed and to not bog the machine down on slope; that is, to reduce the speed to keep RPMs at or above 3,000 on the slopes. On my land, with this mower, it seems as if low range is going to be used a lot, if not most of the time. It may be because my machine is not worn in yet, but shifting from high to low or back has me coming to a complete stop, pulling a safety pin, unlatching the lever from its lock notch, then teasing the tranny with the speed/direction lever back and forth gently to allow the lever to go all the way to the other lock notch, and then re-inserting the safety pin in the new location. Its no big deal, but not something I want to do every few minutes in the rolling fields. Of course, when Big Oil finagles the price of fuel back up to about $4.00/gal, I might have a change of attitude.

prs

 

[brucet47]

No shifter safety pins on the 4100 / 4200 tractors I own. There are detents that need to be engaged. Generally can shift on the go once you get the hang of it. I'm surprised that Ventrac has not developed a servo to allow an easier range selection. The lever is not especially user friendly. The more electrical tape wrap around the end makes the shift less painful.