Understanding Selectospeed Gears-1959 Ford Powermaster 8

ajPM871

New User
Hey everyone,

I have a 1959 Ford Powermaster 871 Selectospeed with the Elenco 4x4 conversion. It is my first Selectospeed so I don't have a lot of experience with what each of the 10 gears should actually feel like but something doesn't seem right with mine. Between each gear I can feel the subtle jolt/hesitation of the tractor like with most manual equipment which feels like it's grabbing the next gear. R1/R2 seem to perform fine. When driving in open field, forward speeds 1-4 have very little noticeable difference if at all. 5 maybe a slight increase and then 6 is a huge pick up in speed. 7 no change from 6. 8 then slows down, 9 no change from 8. Then 10 takes off like I'm driving down the highway. I do get better traction/push when in gear 1 which makes me believe there is a slight difference from 2-4. Any explanations for this? I end up using the throttle to dial in speed changes rather than shifting gears, but I assume there should be a healthy place to run the throttle once it's all warmed up (maybe 3/4). Any help in understanding how those gears should feel, or how much throte I should be running at during normal light/medium duty use would be a great help.

Thanks,

AJ
 
Sounds normal to me.

Some changes have little ratio change while others have more.

Some changes result in multiple things happening within the transmission resulting in longer delay between disengagement/engagement.

Throttle position depends mostly upon power needed to do intended work. Your call.

Dean
 
Thank you Dean for your reply. I had heard there are some groupings and big jumps, but I wasn't aware the changes between certain gears would be so subtle.
 
The owner's manual suggests that the three bands need to be adjusted every 600 hours.
The procedure for this is laid out in the FO-20 manual.

A buddy of mine needed some help with his 971.
The transmission would not lock up in park, like it was designed to do (not very safe).
So I gave it my best shot, I eventually got it so it would lock, but it was a PITA.

Adjusting bands to the proper torque was not easy, sometimes just 10 lbs was needed. I had to remove lots of dirt, grease, & old paint off the threads to try & get close to the proper readings. (a better torque wrench would also have made it much easier).

One time I lost 9th gear, I'd shift from 8 into 9 & woah! hang on tight. It went from 8 to 10. The dial said 9 but was in 10, shift up to 10 no change. So I'd start over again until I got it right.

I did notice that after playing around that I did get it to shift more smoothly between some of the gears (as compared to before I started).

This post was edited by History Buff (MN) on 09/09/2021 at 03:18 pm.
 

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