Subject: Attention ALL Ford (4) speed tranny owners!! Ford (4)speed tranny TOP cover with shift lever!
(Concical spring!!) For those folks that may not know the (4) speed tranny lever is held in place in a socket on
the TOP tranny cover by a CONICAL shaped spring UNDER that TOP cover! Here is some
friendly advise on what I perceive as a POOR design by Ford on the CONICAL spring that
holds the shift lever down in the socket in TOP cover ...look under your RUBBER shift lever boot ..you will see the tranny lever has a ball/pin that rests in a SOCKET in the TOP cover.
..under the TOP cover is a CONICAL shaped spring HELD in place by a (C) shaped clip ...actually it is not a CLIP (Ford calls it a SPRING SEAT!) ...it has a stamped in recess in the bottom of the (C) clip/retainer ..ALL that holds that CLIP/retainer in place is the CONICAL shaped spring which holds the tranny lever in a socket in the top of the tranny cover. Today on my tractor I went to shift and the lever popped out of the socket!! ..it's a good thing I did NOT pull up on the lever as it would have came out and I would be in BIG trouble! If the(C) shape clip falls off, it usually falls into the tranny say the Ford NH folks!
...50% of the time that (C) shape clip can fall into the spinning gear train ...good by tranny, OR you have to drain the tranny oil an try to find the retainer/seat part ...not an easy
task! So after hearing this news ..I decided I had NO choice put to carefully pull off the tranny
TOP cover and see where the retainer/seat for the spring went??
Well I got VERY lucky for being UNLUCKY ...somebody was watching over me!! What I found was VERY rare ..that CONICAL spring had broke in half ...the ONLY thing holding that (C) shaped retainer/seat in place was the WEIGHT of the broken spring above it! When I
took the tranny cover off the tractor and laid it on the bench, the (C) shaped retainer/clip
fell off on the bench! How's that for GOOD luck!! Lucky I had an OLD tranny case cover that
I was going to throw away because the ONLY salvageable part in it was the CONICAL
spring!! So I recycled it into the Diesel tractor! The OLD conical spring although NOT broke,
was VERY weak ...easily to compress ...so I have ordered from Ford a NEW one! Not going to
loose a EXPENSIVE tranny!! The BOTTOM line is this spring can wear/rust and release the tension on the CONICAL
spring SEAT/RETAINER ..if this happens, there is a HIGH risk of that retainer/spring seat
to falling into the tranny ..NOT a very good design as the CONICAL spring holds the (C)shaped
spring/seat in place!! I would suggest that you folks VERY careful pull up GENTLY on your tranny lever to check
to see if you have GOOD spring retention force that holds the shift lever/ball in its socket.
It should have considerable resistance ..its a heavy spring ..if yours feel weak ..may be wise
to replace it and save a TRANNY!!
(DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!) Take care ...Lee
I was VERY lucky!!
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