Well, here's what I did. I jacked the wheels off the ground and took them off to get to those bypass rods. I took both off and compared them and they "looked" identical to me but mirror opposites of course (right and left). I couldn't see any differences in the rods such as bent out of shape. The right side bypass arm had a lot of gunk around it, so I cleaned that off and sprayed WD40 to help clean it off. The left side didn't have that gunk. With my thumb I pushed and released the bypass arms forward over and over and over again. And the same going backward. That "seemed" to free it up some, although it moves ever so slightly so its hard for me as a non-mechanic to tell. With some nylon cord I tied off each side with the bypass arm pulled forward to the max . I could not turn the axles by hand, but I could take a pry bar and roll them (the elec brake off of course). I reassembled everything and thought this through a bit. I pushed the bypass rods a bit inward (toward the trans). I did this thinking this might lengthen the rods thereby making the flange push the bypass arm further so the little flange on the rod would have more pressure against the slot its suppose to lock against. Earlier Bert mentioned maybe try bending the rods a bit. I did that on both sides and the left side "seemed" to roll a bit easier than the right side.I did this for both sides, right and left. Afterwards, I cranked it up, and as I tried to back it up the machine spun to the left going backwards. I pulled it forward again to straighten it up and backed up again. It did the same. I had forgotten to pull the rods out ! That told me the left side was now disengaged. Bert appears to have been right. So.....the left side is now disengaging and maybe my manipulation of the rods did the trick. This seems to lend to somewhat to what Hammermechanicman is saying. I'll test it again when the weather clears out, and maybe bend the right side rod a bit more to keep pressure on that little flange on the rod against the frame and hopefully disengage the right side. Rightly or wrongly, it just seems that those rods are either not stiff enough to begin with; or ever so slightly shorter than they should be. Whatever, manually pushing the rods inward toward the trans is what I think made the left side disengage as it should. This may lend to what Hammermechanicman said.
I still wonder if there is an issue on the right side since only that side had a gunk buildup around it. But I'm not going to worry over that.
I still wonder if there is an issue on the right side since only that side had a gunk buildup around it. But I'm not going to worry over that.
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