Cub 154 Shift Pattern - Haunted ?

[sjm32157]

I was mowing tonight with my Cub 154 lo boy. With all of the rain the last 6 weeks, the lo boy is getting a workout this year. All is working well. At the end of one of my mowing runs I needed to use reverse to turn around. When I shifted into 1st gear, it was actually in 3rd. What was 2nd is now reverse. It takes some searching to find the correct gear. Something wrong with a shifting forks? Shift lever seems to have more lateral play than it did before.

[Bill Hudson]

... Something wrong with a shifting forks? ...

You betcha! Remove the transmission cover and check it out. This is what it looks like in there: Photo courtesy of Mr. E.

Best case, the forks are simply loose and need to be properly aligned before tightening. Otherwise, possible bent/broken shift forks.

Bill

Edit: Grammar.

[sjm32157]

Thanks for the pic Bill.

I finished my mowing this morning and the tractor runs and shifts fine despite the 'haunted' shift pattern. Stays in gear, no grinding etc... I will have to remove the fenders, shroud assembly to get at the top of my tranny. Doesn't look like fun getting that sheet metal off of the tractor.

[gitractorman]

You don't have to remove all of that to get to the top of the transmission. Just take the tunnel cover off and you can reach back to the top of the tranny to take the bolts out of the top plate and show the open transmission like in the photo above. All that is wrong with your shifter is that the ball cup has come loose from the shifter. You'll have to pull it apart and re-weld it in place, but it's a bit tricky because the cup is supposed to be angled, and everyone wants to weld it so it's at a 90-degree from the shift lever. When you pull it apart you should be able to re-align it with the broken metal, like a jigsaw puzzle, and you'll see what I mean. If you have a welder, this is about a 30-minute fix, with about 25 minutes of it taking the time to pull out the 8 transmission cover bolts and putting them back in.

[seahaul]

Taking the sheet metal off is not that difficult. Remove the 4 bolts holding the seat bracket, remove the 3 bolts holding the rear cover, and remove the 2 bolts holding the fenders to the foot rest. Unscrew and remove the pto clutch knob and the fenders and sheet metal will lift off easily. Takes about 5 minutes.

[BigBill]

Look for loose forks, bent forks, cracked forks.

[Mortgaged]

I've had exactly the same problem you described and the cause was a cracked weld on the cup inside the shifter housing. It essentially controlled the top portion of the shift lever as you moved it through the gate on the lower end of the housing. With no contorl on the top, it hunted through the gears and it was a bit of a crapshoot to guess what gear it would be in.

It can be disassembled and re-welded, or in my case due to time constraints I just purchased a used one and it worked fine. I did have the seller inspect it and make sure the ball looked clean.

Inspect your forks and make sure those bolts pictured above are torque'd properly and you should be good to go.

[sjm32157]

Thanks guys, appreciate all the good info. Now if the grass would slow down so I had time to fix it .....

[sjm32157]

Finally had a chance to tear into the Lo Boy this morning and thanks to all the info you guys gave me, it wasn't too bad of a job. When I took the transmission top off, everything, shift forks, etc looked good. the fork bolts were a little loose so I tightened them down. Put the cover back on and still had lateral play in the shifter. Took apart the shifting lever mechanism and my top cap is a mess. Cracked, looks like it has had multiple repairs already. Hope I can find the part somewhere.