TC33D transmission/hydro issues?

[John_Mc]

I was out working in the woods this afternoon and early evening in my TC33D (hydrostatic transmission). I thought I'd pull up a small stump in the middle of one of my trails, figuring it may have rotted enough to pop out by now.

I was working one of the lower tines of my forestry grapple under it and pushing and curling. I head a pop from under the tractor, and suddenly lost power to the wheels. I pressed the hydro pedal forward and backward, but nothing happened. It acted exactly as if I had in in neutral. I tried shifting in and out of both low and mid range. No luck. I still had hydraulics to the loader and 3 Pt hitch. I curled the loader back preparing to push myself back at least to the trail intersection behind me. I had moved back a couple of feet when I felt a shudder or vibration, and started getting power to the wheels again.

I was relieved, since I was on the far corner of the property and was not looking forward to figuring our how to get it back how again to where it could be reached by a service truck. I felt a few more shudders as I was getting turned around and headed home. It seemed to drive normally most of the way home, but I did think I felt that shudder again once or twice.

When I went to park it, I found that rather than the hydro pedal returning to neutral when I took my foot off of it, it was trying to creep forward at about walking speed. I moved the treadle to reverse and it backed up, but as soon as I removed my foot, it returned to rolling forward again.

Something is definitely not right, and I have a sinking feeling it's more than just a bit of crud or a stick jammed in the linkage. I have a belly pan which should be protecting things fairly well, but it was too dark out to really get a good look by the time I had a moment to try to examine things.

I'm going to remove the chains and attachments and clean things up tomorrow afternoon, then probably make a call to the dealer to see about getting things checked over.

Any thoughts on what might have happened? While I was using the loader with some force, I did not have the impression I was putting any unusual degree of load on the drive train.

 

[oldestgoat]

Did you figure it out?

 

[John_Mc]

Did you figure it out?

Yes. Posted about it in the general "Owning and Operating" section (I meant to post in the "Parts and Repair", but messed up.) You can find the thread here: Bad News on my TC33D.

Long story short: I cracked the clutch housing which joins the front half to the back half of the tractor. Apparently, the two halves separated enough that the shaft driving the HST pulled out, thus giving the impression that I was in neutral, regardless of where I had the range select lever. The only thing preventing the tractor from completely pulling in two and just dropping the belly on the ground was the backhoe subframe & belly pan down below and the limb risers and Falling Object Protection (FOPS) I had added above.

Somehow, when I was fiddling with the loader to push myself back a bit, I must have gotten aligned well enough for the shaft to re-engage and it pushed the two halves back together. It stayed well enough to let me get the tractor back home and later load it on a borrowed trailer.

With the help of folks here, I located a good used replacement part, and had a locat tractor repair guru put things back together. It cost about half what the local NH dealer had estimated (their estimate was based on a new part, since they had not yet searched for used. However, their estimate was also "if everything comes apart and goes back together well, which we doubt will happen on a repair like this.")

Tractor is back together and working well doing storm damage clean up in our woods.

 

[oldestgoat]

Thanks for the reply, glad you got if fixed, albeit probably a learning event. I've had a friend who works for Deere tell me, If it's green, blue or orange take it easy. If it's yellow go for it! Meaning yellow is the color of most construction equipment. Tractors, as tough as they are aren't built for those types of work. I've had my own learning experiences, lol.

 

[John_Mc]

The odds of my buying a skidder or construction equipmnt are pretty slim. However, I really should trade up to a larger tractor one of these days. It would mean having to redo all of the customizations I've had done over the years for working in the woods. My dealer (who isalso a Kubota dealer) was trying to convince me to go up to a Kubota MX 5400. The problem is, once I add the limb risers and FOPS, it won't fit in my tractor garage: those mods prevent folding down the ROPS and that tractor is too tall with the ROPS up.