Come here often to find help for my 51 8n and appreciate the information. Wanted to share my experience. A couple months ago I went to warm up the tractor ahead of a snowstorm and as it just started to roll over heard the dreaded crunch-whirr. I pulled the starter the next day and found the gear completely gone. Searching here produced four main options. Leave the pieces in there, split the tractor, pull the steering box or fish them out. Had almost convinced myself to leave them in but read about a magnet in a piece of poly hose. While searching for the right combination of parts I came across the Ram Pro magnetic tool for $9.95 and decided to try to fish them out. In about 45 minutes I had recovered pieces to account for 6 teeth. A fair amount of that time was spent getting use to the tool and the bends necessary. One piece was a double. Had almost convinced myself that was good enough but went back the next day to try one more time. All the pieces recovered were from the transmission side of the flywheel. So I tried dragging a strong magnet across the bottom of the casing to see if it would pull pieces to a point where they could be snagged. No joy. Ready to be done I wondered if the tool would fit along the flywheel ahead of the ring gear. When I tried it only went about 4". When I pulled it out to reposition, it had a 3 tooth piece on the end. All nine accounted for. I had rolled the flywheel over with a screwdriver several times to make sure it was moving freely and inspect the ring gear. Leaving that last piece where it was could have been a disaster.
