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Craftsman lawn tractor is hard to get in gear?

I have a 3 year old craftsman 1100 lawn tractor. 42 inch cut, 14.5 hp. I notice at the end of last summer that when I move the lever to put it in gear that it was getting hard to move the handle. This year when I tried to use it for the first time it wont hardly go in gears unless I really put a lot of pressure on the lever. I know this is not a good thing to be doing using force to get it in gear. Do you have any suggestions on what might be causing this?

Barry Collier
July 2004

Craftsman Craftsman 1100 Garden Tools, Lawn Mowers Year Inch Cut

My Sears Tractor had the same problem. Found out the shifting mechanism was rusted/corroded into the transaxle case. Where the shifter rod enters the case there is a rubber o-ring, square-sectioned,
seal (of sorts) that was broken, which I super-glued back together. I assume the broken seal/ring allowed water to enter the transaxle and it rusted the shaft. I also found the 5/16ths detent ball in the shifter to be rusted out of round--found a new one at Ace Hardware. Even after the transaxle was out and split, the shifter would not budge. Three days of soaking in Kroil and a three-lb. hammer--out it came. Works good now.

Steady Eddie

Steady Eddie
September 2004

Barry:
Do you have a large area to mow? The reason that I ask is my neighbor is mowing a large area of grass once a week and has had the same problem. What I have found that is creating the problem is a build up of fine dirt and grass clipings around his lever and that this material will set almost like concreat. Once we removed the blockage from around the lever the mower was like new once again.
Check and see if thats not your problem. And let me know if it doesn't do the trick. Good luck!

Lester (chetsbro1@cs.com)
July 2004