[sorner]

My 1872 developed a severe leak at the input shaft seal to the transmission, I thought that's no big deal, I've seen this before... I ordered a seal to replace the seal. When I got the seal, I took the charge pump off to replace it, because it's a little easier to do than prying the seal out and risking damaging the input shaft in my opinion. Anyway, when I got it apart the needle bearings in the charge pump all fell out and the shaft was eaten away. What a catastrophe! So, I did a little research and decided to take the hydro pump apart, get the shaft out and replace the shaft. I reached out to Jeff (Parts By Jeff) and he said he could repair the shaft, so I sent it to him, and he repaired it along with a CV drive shaft to lengthen so I could convert it to CV drive shaft. I got the parts back, made sure everything was clean and carefully reassembled the hydro and put it back in the tractor (new cork gasket, oil, etc.), set the linkages up and everything. I took it for a test drive and it will only go about 2/3 speed in forward compared to before, and compared to how it ran before. The speed control goes all the way up and down, so there's no restriction there, but at about 2/3 I notice the speed stops increasing as the handle moves up. Reverse acts normal. I replaced the charge pump with one that had good bearings and new seal, it looks identical to the one that came off. I thought maybe I accidentally installed it backwards so I turned it 180 degrees and it doesn't move at all, so it was not that. So, after this long winded explanation, what could possibly be the issue with my hydro forward speed being restricted to about 2/3 speed?