I have been having an issue of my B2650 HST treadle pedal not going back to center and therefore creeping unless I manually centered it. This also led to not being able to start the tractor at times because of the neutral safety switch. It was driving me insane. Searching for a solution, and not finding one that worked for me, I saw this seems to be a fairly common occurrence, and not just with the 2650. Anyway, after studying how the linkage functions, along with the shop and parts manuals, I was able to find the problem in my case, which hopefully can help others.
The bottom line is that it was the safety switch. I cleaned and lubed everything, checked the damper, spring, rubbing of parts, nothing was fixing it. I was hoping it wasn't something internal. Eventually I checked the safety switch. Turns out the switch had gotten gritty, dirty, corroded, or something and was giving enough resistance to prevent the spring from returning the pedal to center. When I took the switch out, I could really feel how bad it was. I'll see if I can open it up to find out what the actual problem is. A replacement is on order.
With the switch out and temporarily bypassed, it's like a whole new tractor. The pedal smoothly goes to center when released and sits right in neutral like it should. No more creeping. I don't ever remember it working this well. The other thing I noticed is that I can shift the gear range easier. I don't know if that happens to be a coincidence or maybe at times the HST wasn't completely in neutral and making shifting more difficult. I'll be keeping a mental note on that to see if it continues.
One final thing... I noticed that the safety switch, while being really gritty, seems like it's awfully stiff. I'm going to see if the new one is as strong and hard to compress. If it is, I'm wondering if this will be an ongoing problem. I couldn't find a a way to increase the strength on the center return mechanism to overcome the switch tension. I may look further into this.
I hope this helps some of you that have had this problem. I know it was driving me crazy and was glad it turned out to be such an easy fix.
The bottom line is that it was the safety switch. I cleaned and lubed everything, checked the damper, spring, rubbing of parts, nothing was fixing it. I was hoping it wasn't something internal. Eventually I checked the safety switch. Turns out the switch had gotten gritty, dirty, corroded, or something and was giving enough resistance to prevent the spring from returning the pedal to center. When I took the switch out, I could really feel how bad it was. I'll see if I can open it up to find out what the actual problem is. A replacement is on order.
With the switch out and temporarily bypassed, it's like a whole new tractor. The pedal smoothly goes to center when released and sits right in neutral like it should. No more creeping. I don't ever remember it working this well. The other thing I noticed is that I can shift the gear range easier. I don't know if that happens to be a coincidence or maybe at times the HST wasn't completely in neutral and making shifting more difficult. I'll be keeping a mental note on that to see if it continues.
One final thing... I noticed that the safety switch, while being really gritty, seems like it's awfully stiff. I'm going to see if the new one is as strong and hard to compress. If it is, I'm wondering if this will be an ongoing problem. I couldn't find a a way to increase the strength on the center return mechanism to overcome the switch tension. I may look further into this.
I hope this helps some of you that have had this problem. I know it was driving me crazy and was glad it turned out to be such an easy fix.
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