MTD shift on the go

Murry Furry

Active Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2011
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my thoughts on shift on the go. first i will explain it so some people will know. it is the type of drive system put in some of the brands of MTD. it "allows you to shift while moving" it really is a braking ragulation system. the higher the number the less brake being applied.

i will start with a up side to this. it is very simple, making the cost of design, and production low. making there product cheap for people to buy. also the general drive train was ment to give before the brakes, and will, unless you keep repairing it as soon as there is a sign of a problem. the last up to them is that they tend to take constant usage well.

now for the down sides. they don't age well. i had two mowers with this drive system. the mower that started my passion. a 92 Sentar MTD, and a 93 genaric MTD. the sentar lasted to the ripe old age of 14 before the brakes started to fail. shortly after the frame gave out, with the electical system. the 93 made it to 17 before the brakes failed, and then the whole drive train quit. the 93 was aways garage kept, and newer abused. the Sentar had driven to hell, and back frequently, and kept outside uncovered.
the moral of this story is that the treatment and usage makes little difference in the length of the drives life. it is simpley the age of the pads, and the system. me and a friend ended up just leaving the mower in drive, and when the engine started the mower started moving. we screwed with it to see how fast we could get it to go.

with that down side out here comes the connection. for people that like to collect mower this cause more problems for use. to really service it you have to drop the axle to get to the pad.
 

ILENGINE

Lawn Pro
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May 6, 2010
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Take it from someone that has worked and repaired that drive system for 13 years. the only use of the brakes are for stopping. the brakes have nothing to do with the amount of speed that is generated. It workes by using a variable drive pulley system. When you change the speed selector it allows the variable pulley to move back further which in turn also moved the brake pedal to the rear but doesn't have anything to do with the transmission brakes. the further back pulley allows the belt to move into a lower ratio which is then in turn taken up by the tension on the rear drive belt in a higher ratio to change your speed. The main reason that the system fails is sometimes a transmission problem but have seen several cases where the owner ran at a constant speed which created a wear area in the variable drive pulley causing it to slip because the tension ratio was no longer in sync.
 

Dangeroustoys56

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Sep 25, 2011
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117
MTD's are cheep, i suppose thats why most of my 7 were free or dirt cheep ( cept for my one brand new in 92 white LT12) - actually it states in the manual certain parts of the tractor need to be lubricated regular- including the rust on, never removeable w/o a torch and a huge hammer wheels.

On a mod MTD i 'bypassed' the nearly press fit wheels - after a few hours, large hammer, a steering wheel puller and nearly a can of PB blaster i pulled the wheels off - used a grinder to lightly grind the axle shafts a hair smaller, never seized them up and used lock tite on the wheel bolts - they slide on and off easily now.

Earlier this year i had to do a 19 year full service on it - new belts , blades, a mandrel , installed a regular size battery ( opened up the sheetmetal under the seat for it) and install a tube on one rear tire - i had never seized them years ago - with a light tap of the hammer- the wheel came right off . I had to take all the rear sheetmetal off to actually acess the belts tho . My dad still uses it every week to mow thier 2 acres . My white was always parked in the backyard shed and stored for the winter.

The variable pulley also needs lubricating once in a while - the center part slides back and forth- this gets loaded with belt debris, yard debris, dirt, dust and even rust. Regular lubricating would keep it going- i actually have a few spares on hand to replace them if needed .

Brakes are made of 2 disimilar metals - aluminum and steel. Aluminum corrodes, steel rusts - every so often, the caliper needs to be taken apart and lubricated, the brake pads do wear out also and get contaminated from grease, dirt, ect.

The speed is detirmined by the location of the belts on the variable pulley , not braking - its actually the same theory as a snowmobile clutch - higher the belt rides- faster it goes .

Thats why the transaxle is a 1 to 1 ( forward/neutral/reverse) only and the variable pulley is the transmission - the variable pulley moves forward and backward in the tractor ( on its pivot point) and the center part of the variable pulley slides up and down - the position of the pulley in the tractor detirmines speed also.
 
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