50 gear shift lever.

fixerupper

Well-known Member
Bottom snap ring groove on the gear shift lever on a 50 has tapered edges and is too wide. A new lever through Deere is out of the ballpark at $270! Can this be fixed without making the shaft brittle? (First pic) Second pic is what the groove should look like.
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I put them in the lathe and recut the groove so it has a true edge again. When going back together another spacer washer is usually needed under the top snap ring to help tighten it all up again. I think I have had more worn out top grooves than bottom ones though. Just another thought too. You could widen that groove out to accept 2 snap rings and it would not alter the spacing the ball sits.
 
Mike I was thinking along the same lines, widening the groove for two snap rings. It's almost wide enough now. One little red flag comes up in my mind though. The half ball that rests against the snap ring is recessed where it hits the snap ring so the snap ring is inside the ball a bit, probably to keep the snap ring from spreading. They must have done that for a good reason. If I have two snap rings stacked one snap ring will be out in the open and can spread for whatever reason. This shifter had enough up and down and sideways slop that it slipped out of the high-low fork. Easy fix but EXPENSIVE if all the parts on the shift lever plus the shift lever are replaced with new. I found a new shift lever on an aftermarket parts site for much cheaper but they are out of stock.

On a related note, I have heard so much talk about Deere mega dealers having parts men who don't care to help you, and I have run into the same thing. When I called the local Deere dealer for these parts, the parts man rattled off the prices and when I declined the shift lever because of the price he told me he would do some looking for it in other places to see if he could find a cheaper one. Today he called and told me he could not find one but I did thank him for going out of his way for me. I will do more business with this dealer in the future.
 
I have fixed several of them. I preheat the shaft and weld the old grove shut. I then heat the entire end of the shaft until it is cherry red. I let it air cool. I chuck in a lathe and recut the grove. I then reheat the shaft cherry red and slowly oil cool it. I never have had one break this way.

IF I have the forge going I use it to heat the shaft in not I just use a rosebud torch tip.
 
JD when you oil cool do you just put it in a pail of oil and walk away for awhile? I've heard of it done but never attempted it.
 
NO!! LOL You dip it and pull it out for a few seconds an dip it again. Repeating until the oil does not flame and the part is cool. The object is to slow cool the part not quick cool it. If you want glass hard then water cool it fast. If you want hard but tough then oil cool it like I stated.

The most common repair I do is welding up draw bar holes. I preheat the draw bar and weld the hole back with a wire welder. I then reheat it and oil cool it just like I stated.

I have also repaired gear shift levers like yours without a lathe. You have to have a good drill press. Just chuck up the shifter and take a good square file and recut the snap ring grove. It takes time but can be done in an hour or so.
 
I put a new shift lever and associated parts in my 50 in 1995. The new lever was $83.27 then (I have all my receipts from when I bought the tractor [1991] and up to the present) with the total bill for all parts on that job at $110.83

If it's of any help, I measured the old and new levers and from my "scratch paper", the top ring was .575 dia on old lever and .585 dia on the new lever and the bottom ring was .570 dia on old lever and .585 dia on the new lever. The "snap" ring slots on the old lever were .090 wide and a new "snap" ring was .080 thickness. The narrower and "longer" machined part of the lever between the "snap" ring slots was .500 dia.
 
If you happen to have the shift forks out I build up the worn spots in them where that lever wears into them over the years. Really helps get good shifts back. Nickel welding rod and a grinder works good on those. You can easily tell the worn spots as they are the shiny indented areas. Just fill them back up level again.
 
So far I don't plan on pulling the forks. I did rebuild the forks on my 630 and it made a new tractor out of it. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Use the side of a flat file to square the upper edge of the groove, then find a narrow washer that fits the shaft and removes any up and down play in the shift lever. The lower snap ring is trapped in the shift pivot ball. I always put some rubber silicone between the ball and shaft to help keep water from running down the shift lever into the transmission.
 
OK, here's what I did. I tacked the old groove shut with the wire welder, using short little overlapping tacks letting it cool just a bit between tacks. It was just a little hotter than I would be comfortable touching it when I was done. Then I ground it down to close to the shaft diameter and tried it in the lathe. The lathe did turn it down but slowly. The groove cut slowly but it did work. Did I still crystalize the shaft? The shaft is pretty hard stuff. I tried to square the bottom of the top snap ring groove with the lathe and it just made a shiny spot without removing any metal.
 

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