Dr Allis or anybody

Why do the Allis-Tractors jump out of gear especially when going down hill,Is it the collars get wore and sloppy, or is it the wrong cut on the teeth,or what?

I have chased this around on 2 WD-45's and would also welcome some expert advice. It is not always the worn stick shift or worn pins in the shift tower. Photos of defects would be a real plus.

It's not the teeth. Yes, the lugs in the collars get worn, and the matching lugs on the sides of the gears get worn. Although you can't see much of the inside of the collars, the wear on the exposed lugs is obvious when you look down in there.

As the tractors get older, things do get a little looser and that certainly doesn't help. But, the biggest reason for jumping out of any gear (usually third) when going downhill with a load pushing you, is the fact that people jump on the seat, push in the clutch and GRIND the transmission into gear. They never throttle the engine down to an idle or wait for the gears to stop rotating, they just grind all the nice edges off of the shifting dogs !!!!! The tractor will pull a plow or disc all day long and never jump into neutral, but as soon as you go downhill with a push behind you, BINGO, she jumps out of gear. The heavier the tractor is, the worse it is. The steeper the downhill grade the worse it is. Why third gear??? Because that is the gear that gets used (and ground) the most. Take a shift cover off sometime and look at third gear and then look at LOW GEAR. It's enough to make you throw up at the damage people have done. If you are in that big of hurry, grind it into LOW GEAR first and then shift into third. Low is turning slower and will stop things turning easier and no one uses low gear anyway. Anyone who tells you grinding an AC into gear doesn't cause any harm is simply a fool. Over the years I have actually sawed off some gearshift levers and left off the rubber knob after spending a customers $$$$$$ on transmission repairs to help reduce the carnage of the new parts !!!

Ok Thanks well said , I just lost a good friend yesterday he went down a 100 foot in allitude hill, but not sure how long the hill is, he was pulling a Little International Scout, the one with a little 4 foot box, i figured it jumped out , and it started swaying, and lost it, once the tail wags the dog, it was over. The One Seventy landed in the North ditch wheels up,and grass and gravel in the both beads on the tractor rears. The Scout never tipped, just pushed the steel clips off the barb wire in the south ditch. But the rear left tire, on the scout had a the bead broken , they were a good Lt Pick up tire, i am not sure how that figures into the equation,but going to ask for a copy of the Highway Patrol Investigation. The good thing was he didn't get pinned under the 170,he was throw clear, but dead at the scene !

That's too bad. It will be interesting to see what the accident report says. There are some hills so steep even the application of the brakes just cause the rear wheels to slide, so at that point you shouldn't have been there to begin with. Tractor tires don't have much traction going downhill and the less tire tread the worse it is. I saw a situation similar with a D-17 and a loaded manure spreader in a timber. Tractors rear wheels sliding and skidding while going down the hill. I told the customer to choose a different path or quit going back there.

Neighbor we traded help with owned the baler, I started running his WD-45 and series 4 D-17, then his D-19 at a pretty young age. I'd shift the transmission into gear once all afternoon. Those little oil bath hand clutches were meant to be used for frequent stops. The Power Directors on the 17 & 19 did have the advantage of a high and low gear. The baler was an engine driven IH #55-T, when that big plunger stopped and changed directions the whole tractor, baler, and loaded rack was going to rock.
The last time Dad and I baled we used the neighbor's slightly used IH #37 pto baler behind my Super H. We got about 1000 of those cute little bales off 20 acres. 2nd gear was about perfect. Glad I didn't rake up the monster windrows I did for the #55-T baler.