Transaxle Trouble in Vintage Garden Tractors

Hi Vintage Garden Tractor Enthusiast!

This week we have a customer machine in the shop. Our customer's complaint was he just bought this "restored" 1970's Wheel Horse Raider 10 Garden Tractor, and the transmission would only shift into 1st gear and Reverse and even then he had a hard time shifting it.

Our customer opted to just swap in a good working transaxle and have us rebuild the broken transaxle at a later time.

Here is what we found:

The photo you see on the left is the shift forks and some of the gears as you see them through the shifter hole. This is where the shift lever would enter the transmission case to shift the forks into gear. It's hard to see but the gear teeth and shifter forks are covered in rust. There was no oil in this transaxle and instead there was about a gallon of water!

The photo on the right is a new shifter boot vs the old original one that was with this tractor. The worn out shifter booth allowed water to enter the transaxle thus ruining the internals.

It's hard to believe this tractor was sold as a restored tractor and the transaxle received so much neglect. In any case we will fix this for the customer so his tractor can live on for many more years to come

The moral of the story is the make sure the shift boots on your tractor are in good condition. They keep the water out of the transaxle. Replace them if they are worn. We don't sell shifter boots yet, but we plan to in the near future.

Also frequently check the oil in your transaxle. The oil level and condition will give you early warning signs of other problems. When oil has water in it, it turns to a milky white color.

Thank you for reading this blog. We will be publishing new articles every Monday so please keep returning for more!

Thank you for saving the Tractors!