We did verify that shaft was spinning the whole way through....

But not under load. Friction can make it spin, but when load is applied and resistance to the shaft happens, it can stop/slow the spinning. It seems like this thread and your thread on the other forum have all came to that same conclusion; make sure the shaft is spinning under load. :beerchug:

Yes, we know you said it was spinning. What we are saying is that sometimes just the friction of the coupler with a sheared pin will spin the shaft. When you put a load on the hydro, it stops. SO..... take the tunnel cover off, or have someone look up into the back and see if the shaft stops turning when you try to move the hydro lever. OR, if you have the fenders off and can get to it, MOTOR OFF, grab the output shaft with a pair of channel locks, vice grips, or a small pipe wrench and see if you can turn motor with it. (I'm talking about the output shaft sticking out the back of the unit itself.

Now. If you find that the shaft is indeed coupled all the way through, then more than likely it is air locked or the filter is plugged. No matter the reason, I'd change the filter anyway. Unless they did that when they topped it off. Then, like jimbob said early on, start it, move the hydro lever to just creep forward a little and push the tractor a little. Usually moves about a foot and then the pump will prime.

If you do all that..... you should find the issue. If not, report back.

Yea I understand that,
I have not had a chance to test it under load, the above quote was an answer to the last question from the previous page "is the shaft spinning" and yes it is. Now I need to test it under load, hopefully I can get with the neighbor tonight to test this. Verifying the shaft spins with the lever engaged; it does and at the same RPM (seemingly), but again I will further test with the vise-grip / pipe wrench method and try to push the machine while engaged ASAP and report back.

Yes they did change the filter when they topped it off, I cannot verify that they used CUB HyTrans fluid, they said they got it at TSC and it said HyTran....

So if the unit is air locked and you move the that air pocket by pushing the tractor in gear.....Where does that air pocket go ? Is there an actual method for bleeding the system ?


Thanks for all the help so far gentleman.

The air will go back into the rear casing which fine; there is air in it anyway. You just don't want air in your hydro pump.

As for what fluid they topped it off with; chances are, you'll come out ok but if it were my machine, I wouldn't want to mix fluids. Again, if it were me, I'd pick a fluid (do not ask which one, it will completely derail this thread), change the hydro filter and fluid, and be done with that part of it.

Also, you are not "pushing the tractor into gear"; it's basically a hydraulic pump that makes it move, so you are essentially priming the system, i.e., removing any air from it, the same thing you do when you bleed your brakes on your car. A hydraulic pump cannot work with air in the system, so like burping a tupperware container, you need to remove the air from the pump. Once removed, you hopefully shouldn't have to mess with it again.

To find out if the rear spiral pin is sheared, you can take the little "flap looking cover" on the fender pan off (the one where the shifter would come through if it were a gear drive) you can see the actual input shaft on the transmission.

With the engine running, push the lever forward and watch down though the hole to see if the input shaft stops turning when the transmission starts to pull.