D-17 Hand Clutch Jumping out of High Range

Beak

Member
After I rebuilt the engine in my D-17 Series IV, the hand clutch jumps out of high. Doesnt matter if its under a load or just going down the road down hill. It does seem to vibrate a little. Not sure if it did that before or not. I replaced the clutch and in order to get the clutch to fit into place like it was supposed to I had to machine the flywheel a little to get the 1.437. I had the flywheel dialed in to within .0002 when I machined it. Im wondering if the power direct was borderline and if there is a vibration that wasnt there before if that could be it?
We used to have things ballanced in the machine back in the day at the factory that I worked for 29 years. I wonder if that could be done with the flywheel without splitting the tractor. Looks like I'll have to split transmission to get at the power director but I really dont want to split at the engine again. With the loader and all. I cant use it like this. Does anyone do rebuilds/remans with a core charge on these, or do you have to rebuild them on sight and reinstall.
 
#1. Make absolutely sure that the hand clutch lever setscrew on the bottom of the handle is TIGHT. Loosen the jam nut first and then try and tighten the setscrew. There cannot be any looseness of the lever to the shaft. #2. When in HIGH range there is a stop bolt that the lever runs into down by the brake pedals. Remove that 3/8" stop bolt temporarily for testing and see if that makes any difference in the jump out issue. #3. If the problem still persists, it shouldn't bother with the engine at slow speeds, but jump out when throttled up to higher speeds ?? This indicates the ramp plates and rollers are worn out on the HIGH side. You can make a notch in the neutral button gate plate to lock it fully into high side so it cannot jump out. This is not a real fix, but will nurse it along until you can fix it correctly. Don't let anyone tell you that changing "shims" will fix this problem. In fact, changing the wear shims may make it worse.
 
I had a worn out 17 that would only stay in high with your foot on the leaver,after is warmed up it worked fine.
 
And that is exactly how they act....cold oil and any engine RPM, they jump out. Warmed up they usually work fine.
 
Per what Dr. Allis said - here's pictures of the worn notches in the high side power director preload plate of my D17 Series IV. You can see where the roller wears on the preload plate over time causing it to not be "snapped" in tight enough to hold so it pops out. I did not get pictures of the worn rollers but the last pic is the one side of the PD housing with new rollers installed. I had the high side preload plate and the rollers on both sides replaced and it works great.

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This post was edited by Skyhighballoon(MO) on 01/05/2022 at 08:21 am.
 
Wow, It doesnt taker much wear to cause problems by the looks of it. Thanks for the pictures. Ive heard about the rollers but never actually seen them.
 
I'll give these a try when it warms up a bit. We've had a cold spell lately. I do think that the engine was running pretty high RPMs the times that it jumped out. I changed all the fluids in the tractor at the time of the rebuild. I used John Deere Hi-Tran. Maybe its rebelling. lol. That should be good oil to use in the transmision/hydraulic system right?
 
Assemble the whole works and install back into tractor and then get in touch with me and I can tell you how to adjust it.
email me and we can exchange phone numbers.
 
Out of the 45 yrs I have worked on those clutches, if the shims were never changed by anyone, I always was able to leave them EXACTLY the same as they were.
 

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