Model L Gravelys

Have some questions for those with more experience in the Gravely L than I.

First I have one I believe is a 7.6 HP from the side mounted dry air cleaner. It had been disassembled for years & was kinda put back together before I acquired it. Some parts were obviously missing! Since I had another older one that was NOT repairable, I thought maybe it could be used as a parts donor and one good one be built from the two machines. The PTO drive gear & shifter assembly were missing. I swapped those perfectly. Fixed the mag. Disassembled, cleaned & reassembled the carb, replaced hoses & fuel filter and it started on the second pull of the rope! It ran fine and moved ahead in both HI and LO ranges but there was no hint of any reverse! Adjusted clutch linkages & still nothing! Removed the advance housing & found the forward (closest to the front) F/R planetary ring gear was just plain MISSING! My thought was.... that might well be the problem! Tried to pull the entire assembly from the PTO shaft but the sun seems VERY solidly connected to the shaft! Is this normal? The donor's F/R planetary seems to just slide handily off the shaft. Was this a design change or is this one just stuck? Can I just pull the shaft right out of the tractor without dropping thrust washers & needle bearing rollers through the rear of the machine? I don't have a good exploded view of the machine to look at and feared lots of "tinkling parts" if I just pulled it out. Thought I'd ask first!

I thought I could work around the stuck sun gear problem by just installing the forward ring on the existing planetary assembly. That proved a no go because no more than two planets will engage with the ring! Any two will but the third always seems to be a half a tooth out of time. Is maybe this just a timing problem between the planets & the sun that MIGHT be fixed by disassembling the retainers & planet gears to maybe re-time them? I don't know the machine's history & am guessing MAYBE this too was disassembled & maybe this is why the whole thing sat for years & that's when the forward ring grew legs & got away from the now deceased former owner?

Opinions & suggestions welcomed!

Thanks!

Oh brother you are way deeper than I have ever been!!! As far as I know, if you pull that center drive shaft everything falls out. As I tell everyone on here. Go to Gravely tractor club .org or home . Listed both ways. Right side of page there is a listing for manuals. Then you pick what you are looking for on the next page. After that download the PDF files and save them. They have a Very complete library of information! All of the books the dealers have you can find on there. If you have tools and skill you should be able to fix it. Ebay is your friend for some parts and also see if you can find an old dealer with a bunch of old junk out back.

Thanks! I'm REAL suspicious of one of the planet gears being improperly timed with the sun gear. I've had engines off of them before and put new bands (or clutch rings) in the HI/LO assemblies but it's been decades & just don't recall like I usedta!

Never had to work on the F/R assembly until now. Still seems to me that planet assembly should slide right off the front of the shaft but this one behaves otherwise. I pulled with a puller until I feared bending or breaking something. I'll check for advice through the next few days hoping someone knows fer sure! I looked at that site last night & found SOME information but have not yet found these specifics!

I'll post back with what I find though it may be a while. Not cold yet but breeze way style shop heat is starting to get a bit scarce here in Ohio!

Thanks again!

Turns out the shaft can be withdrawn out the front THEN the F/R planetary assembly slides off the REAR of that shaft. It does NOT slide off the front!

My problem with the front ring not engaging properly was because one of the planet or orbiting gears was out of time one tooth. It went back together like a dream & now operates and runs GREAT!

Another Gravely L that was likely destined for the scrap heap runs again!