Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Troy Bilt Vari-Drive problem

I have a 2002 Troy Bilt LTX1842 lawn tractor with a 18.5 hp B&S engine and a varidrive transmission.

When I put it in Drive, it surges forward for a short time and then goes out of gear altogether. I have to then put it into neutral & put it back into drive. It will go fine for a few minutes but it will start to surge again & go completely out of gear.

Occasionally it will stick in reverse, the brake won't stop it & I have to shut the engine off to get it to go into neutral.

This started when I was backing toward a hill & it stuck in reverse. It was always hard to shift on a slope but it never stuck in a gear until a few weeks ago.

I can't use the tractor right now because of this problem so any info anyone has will be really appreciated.

This one has me stumped. I've checked the main drive pulley on top of the tranny to see if it was stripped & it appears to be fine. I also checked the main drive belt and it, too, seems ok.

I believe your shifter handle is bent out of adjustment, and is not putting the tranny fully into gear when the handle goes into the fwd notch. Try putting it in fwd, blocking the linkage under the mower so that it can't move back, and pull the shifter handle back towards the neutral/rev direction to bend the shifter rod a bit in that direction. I think it may have bent the other direction when you got it in a bind in reverse going up the hill. These trannys are hard to shift when they're in a bind and sometimes the rod gets bent in the effort to make it shift.

The problem with it staying in reverse and having to shut it off to stop it sounds like the varidrive pulley needs lubricating and/or the linkage that moves the tensioner may need lubricating.

Thanks so much! I think you might have saved me several hundred $$$.
I'm going to try this fix over the weekend and I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks again! :thumbup: