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rubber donut came off of drive wheel.

3K views 16 replies 11 participants last post by  jsup 
#1 ·
Hey friends......I came up with a new one for me today......a customer came in with a Yardman ( MTD) that wouldn't move. I sold it to him a month ago and the tranny was perfect. I put it into the service position, and the rubber was missing from the aluminum wheel......was down on the other end of the shaft. A lot of aluminum dust on the belly pan and grooves on the drive plate. It took a lot of force and vice grips to get the rubber back in the groove...and then a mallet to seat it good. I asked the owner if he was shifting while holding down on the drive handle....thats the only thing I can think of that would roll the rubber of of the drive disc....he denied it.....but I don't believe it. I told him not to do that.......
 
#5 ·
Always shift my big Craftsman blower on the fly. Never an issue. The Ariens machines don't seem to like it.
 
#9 · (Edited)
Yup. This is from my Ariens manual, from ~2000:
IMPORTANT: DO NOT change motion from forward to reverse with clutch engaged. Forward speed can be changed without declutching.
Anecdotally, I can say that my machine shifts to higher forward speeds easily, while moving. But I feel more resistance if I try going to a slower forward speed. So I don't do that while the drive lever is engaged.

My theory is that, when going to faster forward speeds, the rubber wheel is moving away from the center of the aluminum disk, which it kind of "wants" to do. But when trying to change to a slower forward speed, you're trying to drag the rubber wheel back towards the center of the aluminum disk, thus meeting more resistance.

I typically disengage the drive lever when doing any shifting. But sometimes I will go to faster forward speeds while underway, like if I realize the engine & augers can handle more, during a long straight run. It only needs a light push of the shift lever to do speed up.
 
#8 ·
Common sense would say changing speeds with the drive engaged is not good. The wheel is spinning in one direction and your trying to slide it in another is not the best. Like you surmised, he rolled the rubber off the wheel. And continued to use the machine. That metal to metal had to make some seriously bad noise. And He's responsible for damaging the drive disc, not you. People are getting so ridiculous these days.
 
#11 ·
i cant imagine anyone even attempting to shift a friction diisc transmission on the fly.
i dont think i could do it with either of my ariens, unless i really forced the shifter.
 
#13 ·
Hey friends......I came up with a new one for me today......a customer came in with a Yardman ( MTD) that wouldn't move. I sold it to him a month ago and the tranny was perfect. I put it into the service position, and the rubber was missing from the aluminum wheel......was down on the other end of the shaft. A lot of aluminum dust on the belly pan and grooves on the drive plate. It took a lot of force and vice grips to get the rubber back in the groove...and then a mallet to seat it good. I asked the owner if he was shifting while holding down on the drive handle....thats the only thing I can think of that would roll the rubber of of the drive disc....he denied it.....but I don't believe it. I told him not to do that.......
that sounds a bit weird. were the 2 halfs not bolted together? i recently worked on a mtd and found a rivet stuck between the 2 halves and i am pretty sure it is part of what cause the rubber to jump off the disk and destroy the drive disk.
 

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#14 ·
WOW, when you say it destroyed the drive disk, you weren't kidding!

And I had an MTD a while ago, as I recall, the rubber disk's metal wheel/structure was 2 pieces, and bolted together. So it does make me wonder if perhaps the 2 pieces would typically be tightened onto the rubber wheel, sandwiching it between them.
 
#16 ·
yup. it did quite the number on this machine.

ya. both mtd machines i got here sandwich the rubber but even then it still only pulls things so tight as you can see in the picture but the machine that had it jump off had something holding it open a hair. i just found it a bit weird on how he had to get the rubber back on with visegrip. i am not a certified mechanic but i could almost see forcing the rubber back on the improper way causing issues in the future since it would have stretched things a bit especially if it is suppose to split into 2 pieces.
 
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