530 hand clutch lever

Hello, I have a 1966 530 draft-o-matic and noticed on this one that the hand clutch is parallel to the floor boards where you would have to pull upwards to engage it. My father's 530 and others I've seen you just push forward. Per my serial the parts manual shows this, so its not homemade. Anybody know why Case did that? Ergonomicly correct or something? Lol. Looks like after my serial number range it went back to pushing it forward.

well , to be honest I dunno ,,. but experience with every rendition and configuration of the hand clutch lever on a 300 , 500,630,430early model and the 2 later model 430 as you describe , all work fine ,,personally I prefer the short lever near the dash like my 630 , however I find myself taking my left foot while watching the baler ect , and trying to disengage the clutch , confusing it with pops late model 430..and .there are hazards to each style ,, I recall my 6 yr old cousin playing on pops 430 , the one with the horizontal lever ,..he knokt the lever down and the tractor began to roll ,,. the little fella kept his witz about him and steered the dead hydrostatic steering toward level ground ,another time my nephew came walkin back to the house all worried ,, said he put the rake into road transport and got bak on pops 430 and NOW IT WONT MOVE ,, dad , grinned , and took his grandson back over to the 430 in the truck , where he promptly pulled up the handclutch lever ,And heard his 12 yr old grandson exclaim ,,WHAT A DUMAZ I AM ,,. lol,!,, the early 430 with the taller more forward hand clutch is nice, and in a good spot for working ,.but, try not to train yourself to use the hand clutch for going thru gates and such to avoid shifting to neutral , this happened to me once , winter time wearing loose heavy plaid shirt all buttoned up , I jumped off the 430 after disengageing the hand clutch clutch, and leaving in in 4th direct to grab a gate,, and ran the lever under my shirt consequently engaging the clutch and
THANK GOD stalling the motor,, !!,, summertime can be just as bad with baggy shorts ,. I like to rake in 4th low , 3rd hi or 2nd hi , depending on field conditions,,one field is level with steep 20 ft bank to a county road below, after finish raking the field I jumpt off the 430 to ready the rake for transport , YOU GUESST IT baggy shorts went over the lever and engaged the clutch in 2nd hi,. now I am moving toward the steep bank , with a extreme wedgyand about to rip my shorts to get away , instinctively I pulled the kill switch, and snapped the clutch .. then got out of that mess without taking my shorts off on a public road .. lol...call me careless or even stupid ,,. but I am just human and would bet that I am not the only one this ever happened to,.. I am just glad I lived to tell about it and therefore you don't NEEDto make the same mistakes I do ...

That does make sense what you are saying. Maybe a few people got hurt/killed with the vertical levers so they tried the horizontal position only to find out it had it's own set of issues too, so they went back to vertical. Now that I think about that, I think there are several positions of the vertical levers too. Maybe so not snag ones cloths when jumping off.

never heard of anyone getting kilt by the hand clutch ,, but heard of a lot of tractor accidents without details,,. so one never knows ,,.fyi ,..the hand clutch evolved to the horizontal position in the last yrs ..probably best there because I like to instinctly use my left foot to disengage the clutch , and you can actually nudge the clutch along with your foot leaving your hands free for other controls,.. but CHILDREN Beware when playing while parkt on hills ...