Bolens/MTD Mower popping out of gear - Varidrive transmission Repair. 

Thank you my MTD is about to get a new lease on life now!

Glad to see a person that cleans things befor they tear them down

It's 2022, I randonmly clicked on this repair video as guidance and immediately found the answer to one of my problems! Big ups, great work. Can't thank you enough!

Great video! Appreciate the part numbers in description as well. Just pulled my first one apart yesterday and noticed the damage to the bevel gear.

You've given me the confidence to tackle my transmission issue. I'm pretty sure it's the forward/reverse selector, ( it went " K' Ching" and I lost all momentum. At least you've given me a start. Thanks for your good work, I'm actually excited by the prospect of major surgery on this machine. Cheers!

Frickin' awesome! Great job! I have the same issue...now I feel comfortable with getting mine working again. I'm tired of holding the gear shifter in place and trying to turn.

Exactly my problem on my troy bilt. Thanks for the detailed video.

You just saved me from buying another lawn tractor. Thank you much. 👍🏽

dude you just saved me time and trouble thanks for the video and all the part numbers i will be taking mine apart soon to see whats going on with it

Excellent Video and Repair work. I used various thicknesses of Stainless Steel flat washers to take up some slack in the 'thrust' bearing location. It has worked great for me. One other source of a mower not going into gear correctly is located within the 'differential' housing itself. There is a nut inside that can work loose and its job is to hold the axle tight and keeping the shaft splines mated. When that sucker loosens it is very difficult to gain access. In my case I threw caution to the wind and used a dremmel cutting wheel to make a 'window' in the housing to gain access. Then take a grinding tool to the proper size open-end wrench to make the wrench thinner so it can fit into the window and on the bolt. Tighten it up and good to go. Some people take the differential to a welder and let them tack-weld the nut solid once it is tight. If anyone has problems with this type of transmission; Don't give up ! They can be worked on to last 1 or more seasons before spending some big bucks. [ it has been a while but if I remember right I also used a wrench from a SkilSaw to tighten the differential nut. I may have had to widen the gap in the jaws with a file a bit to make it fit the nut. Using this tool is better because it is already 'Thin' enough to fit on the nut without hitting anything ]

Excellent...looks like the same problem we are having. Gonna try to fix ourselves. Thanks!

Wow very high quality and simple explanations of parts. A+

Thanks for the helpful detailed video, Glad to see clean things befor tear them down !

Glad I watched this video. I had taken mine apart and couldn't see exactly where all the wear was exactly located other than the clutch collar. After watching this video and taking a second look at the forward bevel gear, I then noticed the wear. Yes, you are absolutely right, the broken grease would cause the clutch collar to ramp over the bevel gear and cause wear, and is exactly where I found the problem, Thanks!

THANKS for the video! Forward was slipping to the point of useless, but reverse was fine. It was going to take two weeks to get the parts. So, I swapped the gears (and shims) and rotated the slip (clutch) collar 180 degrees so the square edges were on the (now) forward gear. This allowed me to mow one more time while waiting on the parts (the temp fix also started slipping*). I ordered one gear ($23.00), the clutch collar ($12.00) and could only get the bronze bushing on the forward side (the shorter one of the two -$9.00). The bushings are special and you can't just go to Lowe's and get a bronze bushing. It has a flat spot and an ear that fit into the housing sections. The fork was bent a bit so I tweaked it back to square. Tractor Supply had the 00 Grease-Cotton Picker Grease. It was under $6.00 (MTD grease was more than the parts). I found the 00 grease under the Torque Arm/Turnbuckles and next to the mouse traps, no where near the oil/grease aisle. It is kinda thick at first and the collar was sticking to the gears, but it thinned out eventually. It is a 32 oz bottle. I greased everything then tried to fill the bottom of the housing with enough to equal 19 oz. that MTD says the rebuild requires. * I suspect my problem started as a combination of the bent fork and a worn out bushing (and because I am a fat guy). The new parts had about 0.060 of combined endplay. I tried to add shims to get it within spec (0.015 to 0.020), but it felt to tight when I tried to turn the pulley on the input shaft. So I ended up only adding a 0.020 shim washer to the space between the forward bushing and the spline on the drive shaft. Bolted everything back together and it worked! And no leaks yet! Thanks again! Could not have done it without you.

thanks for all of your good education and detail!!!

Ty this is what my mower is doing? Haven't taking it apart yet but pretty sure that what's wrong w mine . It doing the same thing ya was doing. And ty for listing the parts very helpful.

Also a problem with mtd mowers (that I had with mine at least) the mower was approx 10 yrs old at the time... my friend gave it to me because he (and a so called professional mower repairman) had been unable to find the problem. It was being extremely difficult to select a gear and sometimes impossible to select forward or reverse occasionally you could get it into get by rocking the mower fore and aft but it would slip out often. After recieving the mower I discovered the problem within a few minutes... the lip of the chintzy sheet metal that might be called the "frame" was rusted and broken free on the one side where the axle/diff/trans meets the frame... so it was just flapping in the breeze shifting about when torque was applied to the axle. We welded a tiny flat piece of metal with some holes drilled in it to reinforce the existing mounting spot and it was good as new.

Edit/Correction: The brass bearings on the FNR/Drive shaft gears has to be sitting in a way to receive the upper casing. Adjusted this slightly and now it's clamped together very tightly and can easily spin the drive shaft with my fingers. Win, Thanks brother. Just got mine put back together, using the SS00 grease. Gears spin nicely when it's loose but with upper and lower casing tight it's quite difficult. Think I need to remove one of the washers from the main drive/pulley shaft. I added an extra one because it was a bit slack but maybe that slack is required.

You are my hero! That safed a lot of money! Thank you

Thank you. I now feel confident I can yank my transmission and find out why the axle is riding on the housing and chewing the housing up. From the looks of the inside, the axle goes through a bushing and I believe I have a bushing stuck to the axle and it's turning as well or the bushing is just chewed up. I'll find out when I pull it apart.

I bought my old rider from a friend, it stopped going into reverse and forward. It would just sit there, or go a few yards then stop moving. I cant just buy a new mower, so hoping this is my issue as well. Great video.

Nice video, have same problem on 2012 mtd that l bought earlier this year. Thanks for the video !

I think you just helped me fix my mower

Great ! Very good education and detail ! ( Belgium )

I had a transmission with the same exact problem luckily I had some spare parts and was able to use the gear from another transmission

Thanks, excellent video & explanation, take care.

Really well done.

Thanx for the tips i suspect my MTD has the same problem

A very old parts owner passed, new owners put 00 grease on misc junk for 1.00 a quart, I bought it all for 46 bucks, sold / used 6 and broke even 😊😊😊

Very helpful, thanks.

Great video! Im shocked that you dont have more subscribers... I just got this same mower today, deck and all looks good, but the guy said it wont pull... Said he smells something that smells like a clutch burning... I didnt think this style has a clutch... Im leaning toward either a stretched belt or a worn out spring... I reckon ill see soon... When its not so cold out and im not sick

I flip the gears most of the time and it works great, most people don’t use reverse very much and it saves them 90.00 bucks on old mower

Great video, use Lucas red and tacky wheel bearing grease and run a bead of black RTV SILICONE all around the edges of the lower housing and all around the axle bushings on the end of each axle !

Good job

I want to replace the grease on the axle I have the same axle is it grease any good quality ?

Check brg in top for rust and damage, a oring will help keep water out also

UGH I DREAD SEEING WHAT MINE LOOKS LIKE! YIKES!!

I had a similar problem on my Troy-Bilt which has same setup in my transaxle, bevel gears, clutch gear etc. I thought about it just a bit and realized you should be able to swap the bevel gear/clutch gear assembly end to end on the driveshaft and get "fresh edges" where they count. Since the input shaft/gear drives one bevel gear in one direction and the other in the opposite, the wear will always occur on the "catch" edges of both the bevel gears and the clutch gear "interlocks" but the trailing edges of all interlocks are virtually unfazed. By reversing the assembly on the drive shaft the force and pressure will now be placed on the unworn edges of the clutch gear interlocks and those of the bevel gears. This presupposes that the assembly has not been reversed at a previous time.

Thanks for the tip where to buy the grease, those bolts are 3 start threads self cutting. listen for a click when putting bolts in as you could strip the thread assembling in the cases. There is another video explaining that. Check out the RADIOMACHANICS VIDEO. You didnt show the adjustment for the shifter rod going into the gear box.

Hey man my transmission is for a mtd Troy bilt and mine that middle part doesn’t won’t to slide on to the gear on the left the one you replaced on the transmission your working on and when I press hard on the gear changer it doesn’t hardly won’t hardly go or not go on that gear I don’t know why it won’t I don’t know if the grease on it is to thick just wondering if you might know what it is plus when it was running it would not shift good in forward gear and would grind but it would drive good in reverse

I know it's you put this video out already a long time ago but if there's some way I can get a hold of you private because I have some questions on the exact same transmission

Does the large gear come off? It looks like it’s welded on mine. Since I can’t get it off, how did you clean the gears in the differential?

I have been running standard bearing grease in my diff, but I do not have forward and reverse gears in it. The higher sw grease probably wouldn't let the selector work freely. But I don't think any harm would come to the diff. I put the grease in mine about 7 years ago.

exactly what mine is doing, i got the new clutch and fwd gear, need to check my fork. but please let me know how much play is ok in the axle, on the short side? its not broken but seems to have the same play as all these other videos.

Did you put the popit ball and spring back ???😢😢😢

What causes the grease to come out

How did the "00" grease work out for you? I would think "00", as thin as it is, would leak past the axle bushings. Did the bushings seal sufficently well to hold in the "00"?

Where did you find the parts?

Are transmission hard to replace

Slipping is best way to describe my issue. Under load is worse forwards and reverse. Bushings were shot, in fact wore the axel housing shaft oblong instead of round. I’ll tear it apart again because bushings and cleanup with new grease didn’t fix my problem. At all. Question- the diff seems loose when out but when installed it seems snug. Is my problem most likely the diff or the fwd/reverse thrust plate gears? How loose should/can the diff be? Thanks in advance!

I've seen several videos saying it should have multiple thrust washers on the axles... I haven't opened one of these yet that had multiple washers. The parts diagrams show two different thickness. I think at the factory it is a select fit of one of the two washers., not two washers on each end.

These beat tuff torque axle in every way and are the Best Buy period People with those fluid drive trans axles are spreading big bucks MTD unit is the simplest and easier to maintain

Where you find parts

Question is there a way to add grease without taking out rear from Tractor, or way to check the grease for the rear end, and what grease should be used, doing a spring check on similar tractor,,,thanks...

Check resting spring on shift level Usually there broken and gone Big thing is probably adjustment so there fully in gear

What the cost of a transmission for a bowins

ok mine is a bit different it has 1 gear and the reverse is thru a chain. it has pins for the dogs and they are all good it still pops out of gear no matter where i adjust the shifter. so i'm going to modify the linkage and move the hole out from the pivot. plus i checked the bushings they were good i greased the vari drive slack sheaves and i still have the whine so it must be just part on the system. if the mod to the pivot linkage works i will come back and say it did.

What if the “ramp edge” is square off with a grinder so not slip? Or add some metal with a welder 🧑🏼‍🏭🤔

Can you add a zerk fitting to add grease to this transmission unit

Where did you find a parts diagram for that transmission? Is there a site?

I didn't see when you put the ballbearing back in that keeps the shift rod in position, mine has a shorter bolt that puts pressure on the ballbearing to hold position, at least that's what im assuming it does, can anyone let me know if im right or wrong on this? Thanks.

You can get the 00 Grease on Ebay for between 17 and 20 bucks

I have the same tractor but it is jumping when you start down a little hill. Could this part be my problem too?

What’s the spring in the cup holder for

I just recently replaced my drive belts but now my lawnmower has basicly only one speed, and its very slow. Anyone have an idea of what might be wrong?

@pfun41. Hey there pfun41, great video for starters. Well, first I wanted to say thanks for really describing the issues with your transaxle. Not all video's go into it as well as you've did here. I hope that you don't mind if I download this one, mainly because you go in depth with the issue & explaining it so well, as to how it happened. One potential issue I wanted to ask is, when you added the new lubricant, why didn't you put some of it inside the ends of the casing since there is no way the lube can get from the gears section of the case, over to the 2 bearings on either side, or maybe I should say the inner & outer Bearings that the axle shaft rides on. To me it seems like a design flaw, unless they didn't want those bearings to last much past the warranty period. It just seems like they'd wear a lot quicker the way the casing is made. Why there's no channel routed so the lube can work it's way to the outer sections or some sort of directions that address what is probably an issue further down the repair road... I remember when I'd have to run cable cranes, there was always these small cups with lids. Some would have a sticker or on the really old cranes, instructions were stamped into the lid. Like every 250 hour, or 500 hours, 2,000 meant yearly but you get the picture. I would think that at some point, lubricant would need to get to both bearings on either end of the shaft. I had ''17:42'' jotted down. That's just before you put the top section back on.... Thanks again for the video, MD...............

could you have switched the forward and reverse gears?

what make these axles whine when in drive mode? the more i push on the pedal the louder it whines.

I have the same mower but it will not move foward or reverse. I need help. You got an email?

Unrelated but I replaced the drive belt and now the variable speed no longer works, it's stuck on 1 or 2 (slow). It's correct belt but very tight. Could barely get tension spring back on. Know what is causing this? I can't find any info on that speed lever or how it works.

I changed gears and it still pops out of 3 gear into 6th whats the proplem

My mower just had the same failure. Where did you source the parts? I cannot find them other then complete axle groups

What are the torque specs for the 1/4" case bolts ?

You should have checked the bolts to make sure you didn’t cut new threads in the aluminum housing as the bolts are self tapping and will cut new ones

I think I'd just have got a generic can of STP oil treatment and called it good !

If this post wasn’t 6 years old, I would ask “did you change the seal that was leaking grease on your brake rotor and pads or did I miss that in the video”?

Mine doesn't do good with grease it did lots better with the 20w50 synthetic hydrostatic zero turn transmission fluid oil from tractor supplie it gave mine more reverse speed

where do you get the gears from and do they have lesser teeth

Somebody way over grease that probably to try to quiet it down