B2650 hydro pedal creeps out of neutral

[Newlyme]

There's a big difference between failing to return to neutral, and creeping into gear from neutral without being touched.

Agreed.

Are you sure it's creeping into gear, and not just failing to return?

It sounds like it is creeping from a stop while it is already in gear. And it sounds like it will creep in forward or reverse. If he put the gearbox in neutral, (if able to), there would be no creeping.

But.....He should not have to put the gearbox in neutral. If should not creep while the hydraulics are in neutral.

When I was having issues with my BX24 not coming to a complete stop when I took my foot off of the pedal, (returning to hydraulic neutral), I spoke with a Tech at the Dealer. He suggested cleaning/lubing the linkage, adjusting the return spring, or that there could be a issue with the internal hydraulics, and he said that I should hope it was not the last one, $$$.

The linkage was completely free and moved easily, I lubed it anyway. No difference in performance.

The return spring was all the way adjusted to the loosest setting, (the way it came new). Tight fit to get my hands in there. I took it to the mid point of the adjustment range. It made it better. When I remove my foot fast from the pedal it will now stop. When I feather the pedal to a stop it works 50/50.

I doubt that it is and hope that it is not a hydraulics issue.

 

[PaulL]

It sounds like it is creeping from a stop while it is already in gear.

Yeah, the terminology is a bit confusing here. When I say neutral I mean HST neutral - i.e. stopped, I'm not suggesting he should have to put the range selector into neutral.

In his original post it sounded like he'd kicked the pedal to get it to return to centre, the tractor was stopped, and then the tractor on it's own crept back into forward motion. That sounds quite unusual to me, but not impossible, but like I say, a totally different problem than just failing to return to the centre cleanly. It would suggest the pedal pivot was off centre somehow.

But it is easy to misunderstand internet descriptions, so it's also possible he pushed on the brakes till the tractor stopped, kicked the HST to what he thought was stopped, jumped off, but it was never centred so it crept again. And that'd be a much more common problem that has known causes and fixes.

 

[PHPaul]

In his original post it sounded like he'd kicked the pedal to get it to return to centre, the tractor was stopped, and then the tractor on it's own crept back into forward motion.

This. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

What REALLY confuses me is that it will also creep into reverse on occasion.

I "feather" the pedal to take the load off the range shifter and get it into neutral. When I'm ready to put it back into gear, I have to diddle the pedal back and forth a little to get it back into gear without grinding.

This is what makes me think it's the neutral detent, or possibly the spring.

 

[PHPaul]

After (finally) finding a clear picture of the linkage and crawling under the tractor and watching while my BiL operated the pedal, I think I see the problem.

The spring on the linkage that applies pressure to the neutral bearing to hold it in it's detent appears to have very little (if any...) tension on it.

The lower mount on the spring is on the plate that holds the neutral safety switch. The bracket for the spring and safety switch appears to be mounted with a single bolt. I think I can loosen that bolt, rotate the bracket to put some tension on the spring and tighten it back down.

I'm going to give that a shot, I'll post back with the results.

 

[D2Cat]

PHPaul, it has to be more complicated than that! Someone had you thinking you'd have to remove the cab, and you just adjust the angle of the bracket from underneath?

 

[PHPaul]

Fixed!

I was close...the problem was the neutral switch was adjusted WAAAAYYY too far in and was keeping the linkage from returning to neutral.

Good news is, everything is reasonably accessible from the top after removing the access hatch on the floor of the cab. Didn't realize it was removable until I noticed the bolts sticking out from underneath while I was trying to get a wrench on the bracket bolt (impossible BTW with what tools I had available).

Yanked the mat and insulating foam out, pulled four bolts and the hatch and "Well, I'll be damned, look at that!"

You can see the bearing is not centered in the detent on the linkage. Bit of a booger to get at and I had to diddle the adjustment a couple of times to get it A) far enough back for the linkage to find neutral and B) far enough forward to let the tractor start.

Hopefully, it'll stay fixed now.

Thanks for all the ideas!

 

[Newlyme]

Awesome. Glad to hear you got it.

Thanks for the pics!

 

[rkidd]

Been following this post. Glad to see you got it figured out Paul and can go back to really enjoying your tractor! I have over 1000 hrs on my B2650 now and have had to lube the linkage once in all of that time and it has been great.

 

[Colin]

So I just had exactly the same issue on a B2650 I just acquired a few weeks ago (yay!). The previous owner reported that it had just been serviced for a 'sticky pedal' but they (Sacramento For Tractors) had 'lubed it all up and it was now fine'.

Well, that lasted for about 15 hours of use before it started creeping both forwards and backwards, then it gradually wouldn't start. At first it was just one turn of the key with no cranking, but by the end of the day it simply refused to crank. It seemed to be related to the pedal as sometimes rocking it would let it crank.

In this case I was able to figure out that the Neutral Safety Switch was the culprit. By manipulating the rocker pedal I could see that the switch was not always getting fully depressed when in neutral.

So I wedged the pedal fully forward which leaves an air gap between the linkage and the switch, then tried manually pressing the switch piston. It was immediately obvious that the piston was binding up and was effectively resisting being depressed and thus providing a back force when near the neutral detente. This caused both issues, the creeping and the no cranking.

I pulled back the switch boot and shot into it with some PB (Penetrating Blaster) and manually pressed the switches piston until it moved relatively smoothly. And since then, no more creeping and it cranks every time. I suspect this is a temporary fix, with the fix being either a new switch or at least injecting some grease into the boot.

What i"m puzzled by is why isn't that boot filled with grease from the factory? If they had done that this would have never happened.

 

[PHPaul]

Update: It happened again. Lubed the linkage again and found the switch had died...again. Looking at $50 for the switch and a 120 mile round trip to go get it.

Need to add "Lube the linkage" to my maintenance routine.

Won't go into what I did about the switch, ifyouknowwhatImean...