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Transaxle Problems On The 850 - Help, Please!

12K views 41 replies 11 participants last post by  MailmAn 
#1 ·
Like I need any MORE problems than I already have. I was out playing around with my new toy and trying to get the chute from my new Trac-Vac to mount to my 850's mowing deck. (But more on that later once I get this problem taken care of!) However, I was riding around on my 850 when I had some transaxle problems. It seems my tractor is now stuck in 1st gear and I cannot get it to shift into any other gears. It won't go in Reverse and if I try to shift it into 2nd or 3rd gear, the engine bogs way down and almost stalls and the tractor doesn't go anywhere. It only seems to move when it is supposed to be in neutral. I tried playing around with it some and it only goes ahead in 1st when it is in neutral or in teh positions for Reverse or 1st. Anything else doesn't work. Did I break a pin off on the R/1st shifter shaft inside the transmission or something? How do I take it all apart to check on it and see what the problem is? IDK what caused this or why it just suddenly broke on me, but I'm dead in the water if I can't get it to drive properly!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! It is kinda stuck where it is though esp. with no Reverse gear and I can only push it around with the free wheel pin out (or drive it forward in 1st, obviously... but I kinda don't even want to do that if the transaxle is broken...)

Thanks in advance!
 
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#2 ·
Sounds to me like you are stuck in 2 gears at one time.
Either one of the detent springs in the transmission let go and the shifter arms were allowed to slide freely or your shift lever was too loose and slid out of place.
Can you get some pics of your shifter and the underside?
 
#3 ·
shift fork is broke one broke on my 750 and i had to replace it i broke a belt as well
here is the video of replacing the fork
 
#5 ·
I had my shifter somehow come out of place once and do the samething. Hopefully its that simple. Just lay under the tractor and check out the end of the shifter itself and how it lies in the shifter forks that come out of the trans. The bogging is most likely what brian said, the trans is being placed in 2 gears at one time.I beleive the forks shouldn't both move when shifting, the shifter should only move one at a time. Kinda hard to explain, so I'll quit babbling. Get everything aligned right, and you should be good. I believe someone had a picture of the proper placement for the shifter fork to shifter end. Good luck
 
#7 ·
I'd pull the top cover off and see what was going on. It shouldn't be that hard to shift into gear, Having a loose shift lever can also make shifting difficult.
In the future If the gears do not mesh go back into neutral and let your foot off the clutch and then press the petal down and try again if you keep grinding the gears into place you're going to have some major problems later on.
 
#8 ·
If I don't have major problems already, Doc! I know what you mean and I have tried that, but sometimes it just seems like the gears won't line up. I don't know if it is from the driveshaft stopping too abruptly and the rear axle keeps turning or something and it locks a gear into place or what. I'm pretty sure there is no syncho in this transaxle (it's not a car after all) so shifting can be tricky sometimes if everything isn't all nicely lined up. A good example is if you watch the end of the movie where I tried to adjust the points (badly, according to Bruce!
). As I try to line it up to back it off of the truck, it doesn't want to go into Reverse at all and I end up grinding the gears to force it in. I HATE doing that!!
But after letting the clutch out a couple of times and reapplying it, the transaxle still didn't want to go into Reverse, so I ended up having to force it. I'm sure moves like that are not good for my shift fork either!

Well, I'm in the middle of tearing it apart right now and filming the process, so we'll see what is the matter with it later on today, hopefully!

Oh, and thanks a lot, Farmerall, if you do have a shift fork that I can use if indeed mine is toast!
 
#9 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well, I'm in the middle of tearing it apart right now and filming the process, so we'll see what is the matter with it later on today, hopefully!
Looking forward to hearing the update
 

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#10 ·
If it's stuck in a gear and the shifter dropped below the grooves in the shift rod because of a worn bottom shifter plate,it won't go into reverse.If it does it will most likely snap your belts or rip a gear or 2 up.

Can you stick it in Neutral and crawl under the thing and snap a couple pics of the bottom end of the shifter and shift rods?

They're just in front of the transaxle underneith.Some one else here had to re do they're shifter but I can't find the post it was from around last fall.It had good pics and info in it.
My 1050 got stuck in 2nd and I ended up getting another shifter ball cup for the bottom.the old one was rust pitted and worn to the point that the shifter would drop out of the groove in the shift rods.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
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Well, I finally got it apart today and, more importantly, FINALLY got the video edited and uploaded!! (Of course, it only takes a couple of hours to tear the whole tractor apart and film it, but it then takes 6-8 hours to edit that footage, re-encode it, upload it to YouTube, and wait for YouTube to process the uploaded movie so it is available for viewing!! [Phew!] I mean, I like making videos, but they are time consuming and can suck!!) But in any event, enjoy the fruits of my labor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWgX13c4I5E​
(There's even a hidden surprise in the video since I'm wacky and crazy like that...)​

So, it's not looking good for my transaxle right now.
Not sure how it got that way - from me grinding gears with it a couple of times over the past few months, or more likely from years of abuse by a previous owner which made it hard to shift into gear in the first place? Either way, I'm not sure the best course of action from here. Can I throw a new shift fork into it and be okay, or can the transaxle be rebuilt or is the cheaper and easier way to just replace the whole unit with a good used one? Where can I find parts for it and how expensive will each repair be and how likely is each one to last me for?

Oh, and sorry in advance for the length of this video. I could have edited it down further probably to make it more concise, but again, that's more time in editing and it still wouldn't be up then if I took the extra time to edit it any further. As it is, I probably spent WAY too much time on it for what it is, lol...

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(EDIT - Want a fun drinking game to play with your buddies? Have a drink whenever you hear me say, "So, that's what I'm looking at" in the video!! lol. Just noticed it. I hate it when stuff like that happens!!)

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#13 ·
I wrote down some notes while watching the video so I'm going to make some bullet points on the issues
  • Shifter Is Way too loose! (This could be one of the causes of difficult shifting since the shifter is allowed to bounce around and not hitting the areas it should when trying to go in gear)
  • You did alot more work than you had to! Hate to tell you this, but you really didnt have to remove that dash panel to get that cover off. If you are careful you can pick up the end of the cover and slowly ease it back out.
  • The gear oil Looks like its got water in it. I would change it with fresh 90wt Gear oil. Be sure not to get the new synthetic oil as it will eat away at the brass parts in the transmission! The oil Level looks ok. It only should be filled to the top of the fill plug in the rear. When running the gears will bring up the oil from the bottom and splash coat the ones on top.
  • The gears actually dont look too bad (I have seen worse) If you get a new shift fork I would say you would be all set for a while. I would imagine you can get a used fork for around $10 +- and NOS would probably around $20
 
#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
  • Shifter Is Way too loose! (This could be one of the causes of difficult shifting since the shifter is allowed to bounce around and not hitting the areas it should when trying to go in gear)
  • You did alot more work than you had to! Hate to tell you this, but you really didnt have to remove that dash panel to get that cover off. If you are careful you can pick up the end of the cover and slowly ease it back out.
  • The gear oil Looks like its got water in it. I would change it with fresh 90wt Gear oil. Be sure not to get the new synthetic oil as it will eat away at the brass parts in the transmission! The oil Level looks ok. It only should be filled to the top of the fill plug in the rear. When running the gears will bring up the oil from the bottom and splash coat the ones on top.
  • The gears actually dont look too bad (I have seen worse) If you get a new shift fork I would say you would be all set for a while. I would imagine you can get a used fork for around $10 +- and NOS would probably around $20
I always knew the shifter was lose, but didn't think that it would cause the gears to bind up or cause other problems inside the transmission? I tried tightening the bolts underneath, but they always seemed to rattle loose again. When I put it back together, I'm going to use new hardware (as I have been replacing all the old hardware whenever I disassemble something on the tractor) with some of the nylon locknuts on it to see if that will keep it from rattling loose again. Hopefully it will keep it all tight. When I took it apart, it looks like it was just held on underneath by a normal nut with no washers.

I actually took everything apart like I did to make it easier (and so I can hopefully do some more painting while it is all apart as well
) However, I DID try to shortcut it by trying to lift up on the front cowl to get that lower cover off, but I couldn't get enough clearance to get over the PTO handle, so I said the heck with it and took everything apart. The worst part seems to be that steering column as the paint on that looks really bad. I'm sure I'm using the WRONG color brown (as all of the browns I have seen look lighter than the original color Bolens used on my tractor), but since I've already painted everything else on the tractor with the same color Rust-Oleum Dark Brown, might as well keep with the theme... (At least this brown looks darker than the Leather Brown Rust-Oleum that Tom from Farmersville used to paint all of the parts he sold me...)

I did think that the gear oil looked milky like there was water in it. I just topped the level off with new stuff, I never drained it. I'm going to do that after I fix it. If it got water in it though, where did it leak from? Was there just a leak in the top gasket that allowed water to get in or could I have a small crack in the case? Where can I get a new gasket for the top cover to seal it up or do I just put some RTV on it and call it a day? It is good to know about the Synthetic gear oil, but it has me worried now as well. I'd have to check, but I'm PRETTY sure I didn't buy synthetic grease to grease all of the fittings on the tractor, but I do think I bought top-of-the-line synthetic 80W90 gear oil to top off the transaxle with as well as to put in the mower deck gearbox. I didn't know that synthetic oil was hard on the bronze/brass components. I figured I was doing better by putting the synthetic in!!
I put synthetic gear oil in the differentials of my truck and my 1975 Plymouth as well. The truck is newer and probably okay, but IDK if they used any components in the older diffs like the one in my old Plymouth that could be damaged by synthetic oil...

REALLY??? The gears don't look that bad?
IDK how they could be much worse if you ask me!! Especially that little first gear one that the faces of the teeth are ground right down on. I'll admit that most of the other gears look okay, so you could probably get away with only replacing two gears really - the small 1st gear and the larger sliding gear that engages either 1st or Reverse. But I'm not really sure where you would GET new gears for this and, even if I could, how to install them. How do you remove the shafts that the gears ride on and then remove the gears themselves? I'm kind of worried that maybe all three gears on that input shaft are incorporated into one piece and you'd have to replace the whole thing and can't just replace the individual gears on it. I'd have to look at the parts manual to get a better idea. Has anyone ever attempted to rebuild a gearbox on one of these before?

Also, are both the shift forks identical or do I need a different fork for the 1st/R side than the 2nd/3rd side? How hard are they to replace? I noticed in 8tyman8's video that he put some kind of a rod through the back shift rod support to hold something in there that allows the shift rods to "click" into position or something? I'm worried about taking it apart and screwing something up that will be a witch to fix. Where can I get a rod to slide in there to try and keep it all together? Is there anything else I need to look out for inside there? I've never rebuilt a Bolens gearbox/transaxle before... Although I have seen the insides of a GM automatic transmission before. At least I have to say that this isn't quite THAT complicated, lol!
 
#15 ·
Kevin:

In addition to what Brian has already mentioned:

(1) Those bits and pieces of the worn gears have been distributed around the entire transaxle. ......A thorough cleaning is necessary to remove all those nasty bits! ....Some of that metallic grit may have gotten into the bearings!

(2) When you replace the shift fork, you will slide the shift rod forward. .....You may, or may not, be able to move it far enough forward without sliding the the transaxle rearward on the frame tubes. .....You do not have to undo the clutch shaft or rubber coupling, as the cast-iron flange just slides off the transmission input shaft.

(3) When you slide the shift rod forward, you will lose the detent ball, and possibly its spring, from its position. .....To prevent this, you can slide a 1/2" bolt into place from the rear, as you slide the shift rod forward. .....If you do drop the ball and/or spring, you have to remove the setscrew from the side of the housing to re-install them without difficulty. (Look at the parts manual to see these parts.)

(4) If it were me, I would go further. ....Since you are already this far, I'd suggest taking the gears out of the trans case to de-burr them with a file. .....The missing part of the teeth will not present a problem, but the burrs on the gear teeth will hinder proper shifting, and will eventually break off, and contaminate the gear lube again.

(5) Swapping a complete transaxle does not preclude future problems, especially if the used transaxle has unknown problems.
 
#16 · (Edited by Moderator)
But how hard is it to disassemble the whole transaxle and take all those gears out? Like Farmerall was saying, aren't there roll pins that hold the input shaft and the brake drum to the transaxle that have to come off before I can attempt to pull the gears out? I've never had one of these apart before and not really sure how all these parts come out of there without damaging them.

I agree that I need to change the fluid, hopefully that will get some of the worn metal filings out of the gear oil. Besides that, how should I thoroughly clean the transaxle out? Are you saying I may need to replace bearings in the transaxle as well?
This sounds like quite the job I don't have the time or knowledge to be doing!!

I do agree though that if I don't replace the gears altogether that I should at least try to clean up the teeth on them a bit to make the gear changes easier and to prevent problems in the future.

If there is a setscrew that holds the detent ball and spring into place, can't I just screw it in all the way and the ball shouldn't drop out then? Or is that too easy and of course it won't work that way!?

I REALLY wish I had someone more knowledgeable about these things at my side when attempting to go at this so that I don't mess it all up trying to take it apart and put it back together. The first time is always the worst, but then it gets easier after that...

Because of all these problems, I haven't even had the chance to finish painting the hood and fenders this week (and I've had this whole week off from my other job and I was HOPING to get that finished up!!) and I also haven't had a chance to peek at the MacKissic shredder to see if I could figure out what was wrong with that engine and to get it running. Ugh... Too much stuff to do and no time to do it!!

(BTW - on a side note, when did this forum start censoring posts? I had just noticed that it changed some of the choice words I used and I didn't think that it did that before? I don't recall now. Oh well... I figured we're all adults here and can tollerate a little colorful language from time to time... lol...)
 
#20 ·
that set screw is behind the frame rail
 
#17 ·
The first gear on my 1050 looks like yours. I have a hard time shifting sometimes too. I also find that if I keep the shifter in neutral and release and engage the clutch again it will go into gear. Of course I don't have the bogging down like you though. I also support looking at the shifter and getting everything tightened up.
 
#19 ·
on Almost All of my geared tractors they are worn down
 
#21 · (Edited by Moderator)
Okay, so update on this... Hopefully I will have an update with some actual progress on this soon (like to-morrow?)...

For now, I got the shift forks (yes, plural... Farmerall sent me THREE of them!!
Thanks!!) and an extra gear in the mail last week. However, I haven't had a chance to do anything with them yet since I ended up getting a short-term job this weekend working at the Sylvania 300 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway! It was a great promotion and I had a lot of fun working at the track. I ended up staying for the race and took a lot of great pics with my camera. But, I got back late Sunday and slept for most of the day today, so I haven't even looked at the Bolens yet, lol!

One thing I DID notice was that the welds on the used forks I got from Farmerall look different than the welds on the fork in my tractor that broke. I'll try to get some pics up to-morrow showing the difference. But, I'm thinking that someone beat the transaxle on my 850 and had broke the shift fork on it before slamming around the gears (hence why the gears are chewed up as well). So, I'm thinking someone re-welded the fork on it once before and it broke in the same spot again. Hopefully swapping in a good shift fork will solve the problem. I also bought new stainless steel bolts with locknuts to put the shifter cover back together with so that it will hopefully stay tight! I hope that will solve some of the shifting problems with it...

Like I said, hopefully I can get to starting this to-morrow and get it back running again in no time!
 
#23 ·
What does this mean? Doc Bolens mentioned not to use synthetic gear oil, but that was about it. I did go and check and I indeed did NOT purchase synthetic gear oil the first time to top off the transaxle assembly and to put in the mower deck gearbox. I just bought standard Advance Auto Parts store-brand 80W90 gear oil. However, I did notice that it calls for straight SAE90 weight gear oil, not 80W90. Not sure if this makes all THAT much of a difference or not. I'm going to try and find some SAE90 oil at the parts stores as I do not have enough left to fill up the whole transaxle anyways when I go to reassemble it.

Does anyone have any ideas on where to buy the upper and lower case gasket for the transaxle? According to the parts manual, the upper gasket is #1713420 and the lower is #1713427. Would be nice to not have the transaxle leak oil and/or leak water into the oil!
 
G
#24 ·
I was just getting caught up on this one. Did some speed reading and picked up on the highlights.
I had the same problem on my 1000. Shifter fork broke, rewelded that. Went to put it back together and couldnot find the detent ball and spring. Retrieved it with a magnet from the case and then dropped it on the floor and lost it once more. Was able to get one from bolens (but this was about 15 years ago). Shifter "gates" on the outside were sloppy and I welded back up and ground down to fit snug. That was the last of the tranny problems. It lasted a few more years until the steering crapped out due to a kohler twin repower.
 
#25 · (Edited by Moderator)
AND OF COURSE, it decides it has to rain last night and this morning!! Thankfully I covered up the tractor again last night, but I also think that the tractor cover I have sucks since when I took it off yesterday to work on the tractor, it seemed to have trapped lots of moisture under the cover, which isn't good. But, if I can't work on the 850 this morning, I can at least post pictures from yesterday while I wait for it to dry out a bit (hopefully). So, updates to come soon once I'm done editing and uploading photos...
 
#26 ·
Okay, so it's picture time!!


(Sorry it took so long this morning, but I got a call that the carb for my Plymouth was finally done (after 2 months), so I went to go pick that up and made a few other stops along the way... Amazing how much time you can waste just driving around!!)

I uncovered the Bolens 850 yesterday and took a look at what I was dealing with. It may have been hard to tell from the video I took last week, so I took some close-up pics to show some of the damage. First, here are some overall shots of the inside of the transaxle that also give you a good look at how watery the old gear oil was:





So here's some close-ups of the old broken shift fork that engages the Reverse and 1st gears. Notice anything odd about the welds on it?





Yeah, it sure looks re-welded to me. Those don't look like factory welds on that. Compare it with the other shift fork as well for 2nd and 3rd gears:



The weld on the shift fork for 2nd and 3rd gears still looks original. Plus, looking at all the damage to the teeth on the 1st gear, I'd say that someone was having a tough time shifting and was slaming the transmission around into 1st gear especially. Let's take a closer look at 1st gear as well...





The front of all the teeth are ground right down on the 1st gear. Especially compared with the other gears in the transmission which seem hardly worn at all by comparison!

The next step was to remove the shifter connectors from the shift rods. Surprisingly enough, the roll pins came out rather easily and the connectors themselves came right off of the shift rods as well. I cleaned all of the crud and grease and dirt off of them in hopes to aid in shifting when it is back together again.



The next step was to remove the drain plug and drain all of the gear oil out of the transaxle housing:



Looks pretty nasty, right? So, I took one of the shift forks Farmerall sent me that looked like it was cut off of the shifter rod and had a piece of the rod still attached to it. I hammered out the roll pin and it came right off. So, now I even had a spare piece of rod to put through the housing that the detent ball is in to keep the ball from falling out. Here is a look at the shift fork that I'm going to install into my transmission. The welds look a lot different on it and it looks like it is a good original part:







Then, I had to hammer out the roll pin on the broken shift fork, which also came out easily enough. Now I could take the shift rod out. After chasing the shift rod through the housing with the cut-off piece of rod in order to hold the detent ball in place, I slowly removed the shift rod and slid off the broken shift fork.



(You can also see that the gear oil level is much lower now that the transaxle housing has been drained...) I tried to clean out all of the old watery oil with some PB Blaster as well to flush out the housing. I also pulled off the lower cover and cleaned it off. Surprisingly though, unless all of the debris came out when I drained the gear oil, I didn't see much in the way of metal filings in the tranaxle housing after I drained the oil out.



So, this is where I am at with it right now...





I COULD just throw the shift fork in it and it would probably be okay to run for a while. I'm wondering though if it is not that much extra work to just replace that chewed up 1st gear or at least try to clean it up somehow before I put it back together. I'm also trying to find a gasket set to put the transaxle back together so it won't leak. If I take it apart to replace or clean the 1st gear though, I may have to replace the oil seals and/or bearings in it too, at more time and cost as well. But I'm already this far into it and I'd hate to not fix it the right way and have something else break in it later on because I cut corners on it now, you know?

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I know a lot of people have weighed in on this already and I'm not trying to sound like a pain in the ass or like I'm not listening to what has already been said, but I'm just kind of conflicted over which way to proceed right now. On the one hand, I'd like to fix it right, but on the other hand, I've never gotten into a transmission like this before and especially on something this old where the parts aren't readily available for it. If something goes wrong or I end up needing more parts because I started taking it all apart, then I'm down for another week or two (possibly more) while waiting to get or find parts. Plus, what if I screw something up or put it back together wrong somehow? (Of course I'd like to think I'm not THAT inept and I've taken so many photos already, so I should have a good idea of how it all goes back together! lol...)
 
#27 ·
You're getting there, Kevin!

I'm including some info which you already know, but it may help someone else.

Be sure to remove all traces of the old gaskets & sealer from the trans case and covers. ....Anything left behind will reduce the effectiveness of your new gaskets.

The bottom gasket can be easily made at home using sheet gasket material from an auto parts store or a Tractor Supply (TSC) store. .....Use the bottom cover as a template to locate the bolt holes, but you do not have to cut the center out (the gasket can be a solid piece).

The top gasket can also be made if you can get a piece of gasket material large enough. .....Lay the sheet on top of the trans, and lightly tap with a hammer to transfer the shape of the trans case and location of the bolt holes. ......Careful repeated tapping can actually "cut" the gasket to shape in place. .....The ball-end of a ball-pein hammer works well on marking/cutting the bolt holes. .....As each bolt hole is cut, install a bolt to keep the gasket material from shifting.

One of the Bolens vendors may have the gaskets in stock, but I have no idea of the cost. .....It's your call if you want to save some time & money by cutting your own.

There should be a porous bronze breather at the (top) right-front portion of the trans case. ....In one of your pics, it appears to be covered over with goop. ....If the breather is not in place (it is flush with the mounting surface), the hole will need to be covered with your homemade gasket, or sealed if you use a Bolens gasket, as the Bolens gasket is notched out around the breather.

The thickness of the bottom cover gasket is not critical. .....1/32" - 1/8" thick material is OK. ....Cork, neoprene, or treated-paper gasket material will work.

The thickness of the top gasket should be 1/32"-1/16".

Gaskets made from pizza boxes, or other cardboard will eventually allow oil to permeate through.

You can use a thin smear of silicone, gasket cement, or RTV gasket goo, to help insure a good seal.

I like to cement the top gasket to the trans case, and apply a thin smear of chassis grease to the top of the gasket. ....By cementing the gasket to the case, it will not move around when you re-install the cover. ....The grease helps create a seal, but prevents the gasket from sticking to the cover, so that in the future you can R&R the cover, and may not have to replace the gasket.

For the bottom gasket, I usually cement that to the cover, and apply a thin coat of silicone or RTV to the top of the gasket to create a positive seal which will allow the cover to be removed in the future without tearing the gasket.

Original Bolens gaskets were installed without sealers and relied on proper compression to create the seal.

It's your call on which method to use.

As far as the chewed-up gear: Try sliding the gears together by hand to see if they mesh easily. ....If they do, you may decide to take a chance and leave them the way they are. .....If they bind, or do not engage easily/smoothly, now is the best time to fix it.
 
#28 · (Edited by Moderator)
Geez!!! What is with all of this bloody rain lately? Just when it looks like it might dry out enough to start work on the tractor again, it starts raining again!!! According to the weather channel, it looks like it's supposed to rain all day today and into Saturday! Ugh! I just can't catch a break it seems...

Of course, I know some of you will be saying, "But I know you have a garage, I've seen it in some of the other pics you've posted. Why don't you work on it in there out of the weather?" Well, I WOULD, but stupid me had to figure on trying to paint the rest of the tractor at the same time while it was down due to the transaxle. So, the hood, fender, cowl, assorted other parts I've pulled off the tractor so far, etc. are hanging in the garage being painted, so there's not a lot of room for the tractor right now and plus I really don't want a ton of overspray all over the tractor either. So, for now I'm stuck dealing with the weather, unfortunately...

I also bought some gasket-making materials at Advance yesterday to try and make the gaskets for the case, since it doesn't seem like they are still available at all. (Well, the lower one is available, but that's not really the problem gasket - the upper one is, which of course is NLA and no one seems to have it...)
 
#29 ·
Looking at that 1st gear, some of the damage could have been caused by the broken part allowing the slider to contact that gear when you were in another gear, thus chewing it up. IF you decide to leave it, some of those chewed areas will come off and could take out a bearing. Right now, you probably have small particles still in the bearings. I'm not trying to scare you into tearing it down, just want you to think about it. A good flush would probably help a lot. Plus, maybe a small magnet to capture some of the particles floating in the fluid?
 
#30 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well, despite not finding it anywhere locally or from any of the other "usual suspects",
it does seem that I found a NOS upper transaxle case gasket on eBay for $14 (+ S&H):

http://www.ebay.com/...=item27c1f8a97a

Unsure if anyone else even has one at all, let alone for any cheaper. From the looks of it though, I can see what Bruce was talking about with the cut-out in the gasket for the transaxle breather. Is there actually something that goes in there to act as a one-way breather or is it just a hole in the case that allows air in that I need to clean the **** out of?
 
#32 ·
Wow, take a look at the guys other listings. His prices are pretty steep and shipping is about double the actual cost! Have you checked with Bob (bhts) to see if he has any?

Here's a few pictures of the breather assembly .
The first pic is of my NOS one I got stashed away
 

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#36 · (Edited by Moderator)
Here's some pics from tonight. These were my working conditions after I bought a work light from Harbor Freight earlier today to shed some light on the subject. The first pic was without the flash, so you can get a sense of the ambiance, the second was with the flash so you can see everything:







So anyways, here is what I ended up doing to the 1st gear in the transaxle with the cordless Dremel and a very small grinding wheel:





Here is what the gears look like when they are meshed together:





I hope this little bit of de-burring will help the gear changes. I'm thinking the biggest help will be the new shift fork and new, tight hardware to hold the shifter in place. At least I'm HOPING these will improve the ease of shifting the old Bolens, or else I'll have felt like I wasted a lot of time on this for nothing! I know it looks bad from these pics with the metal shavings everywhere in my transaxle case, but I thoroughly flushed them all out with a can of PB Blaster after I took these photos.
 
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