3650 GST hard to shift to reverse

[Big Orange]

I have a 3650 GST I have a hard time going from forward or neutral to reverse I need to put the bucket down and roll it just a tiny amount pushing the tractor back an inch or so and it will drop into reverse. This is ok as long as I have a place to plant the bucket but pushing snow over the edge of a bank this is not always the case. I just drained all the transmission oil and replaced it with super UDT 2 made a big difference in operation but did not help the reverse problem. any help out there would be appreciated.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

You could have as simple of a problem as a bad knuckle joint on the linkage to as complex as bad sync rings in the trans, on the reverse section.
Start by removing the side cover over the trans tunnel and see if you can tell if the linkage on the side is binding.

 

[Big Orange]

this is an older tractor and the linkage is fairly loose, but I removed the linkage from the lever on the side of the transmission and just moved the lever on the side back and forth it seemed to be the same.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Put a pair of vice grips on the lever and run the tractor it see if you still have the same problem with it not wanting to go into gear, If you do then you'll be in for a trans removal and repair.
I did mine over the summer it's not that hard to do, I have the same tractor in a 3450 GST version, your trans is actually less complex than mine because you don't have a 2 speed PTO.
Oh and all the parts you need are still made.

 

[Big Orange]

I only tried this by hand not with vice grips. I read some post on other sites that talk about a bent fork in the transmission? you said you rebuilt yours why?
was it doing the same thing. dont you need to split the tractor for transmission rebuild? I am pretty handy but not sure if I am up for that. I read warnings about not forcing it into gear how easy should it shift with the vice grips?
Thanks for the help.

 

[Big Orange]

Another piece of info on the shifting! when you are on the flat and try to shift to reverse it ever so slightly starts to move backwards but it is not in reverse yet. also it does not have trouble all the time. I have tried high rpms low rpms I adjusted the clutch play, most recently it also has a little trouble going to forward but not as bad as reverse. I have 1700 hours on the tractor.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I bought my tractor from a person that had taken it to a dealer to have a shifting problem fixed, (I never did find out what the original problem), What he ended up with was them breaking the case and dozen other parts, all because the mechanic that worked on it had no clue what he was doing and forced the cases back together with a roll pin hiding in the main coupling.

It is actually very easy to split the tractor, I did it outside on a flat surface, only took a day to pull everything off and split it. It took about 3 days rebuilding it, I replaced all the O-rings I think it's like 78 of them in there, 2 bearings, a synchro key, and bunch of other parts.

 

[Big Orange]

Got the chance to pull the transmission cover and unhook the shifting linkage on the side of the transmission housing. I put vice grips on the shift lever and bad news it still does the same thing.
Looking at the manual it shows the shifting forks hooked to the side of the transmission cover. Dose any one know if the problem was one of these forks being bent could you fix it without splitting the tractor?

So far today with the cover pulled and the oil fill plug removed I can see that the clutch does stop the gears from spinning completely and when I use the bucket to roll the tractor back the gears in the transmission move just a tiny bit so I assume the gears are not quite aligned to go to reverse.

Any input would be great!! dont want to split the tractor unless I have to. and for the time being I can use it with this minor inconvenience.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

You can not get to the forward / reverse fork without splitting it, they hide behind the short section that's to the rear of the "clutch housing" (the clutch housing is not the manual clutch section but the "transmission section", they just name it weird). But I don't think the forks are your problem, I think it's the syncro's or the syncro keys that are bad or broken. The good part is you can split the tractor after the short "Transmission" section pull the short section off of the clutch housing pull the shuttle shaft out and repair/replace any broken parts.