I have a Simplicity Champion ZT 2050H with steering/drive issues. On the flat it operates fairly normal. Going up hill it lacks power. The throttle must be open all the way for it to drive up a standard road bank. When it does it tracks right. Going down hill it tracks left even with the right control arm pulled all the way in reverse.
Attempting to diagnose and fix I have so far: Jacked up the mower, opened bleeder valves, and ran several minutes forward and back. I repeated that process twice. Next I removed filter, drained reservoir and emptied into a clean white pail to look for metal shards. I did get some rubbery chunks (just three or four), and some black flecks/grains - but not to many. No shiny metal grindings that I could see. I unhooked steering linkage and manually rotated the valve control plate right at the pump both sides. Both seem to rotate freely and equally. I then turned rear tires by hand with the system DE-pressurized figuring that if a wheel motor was bad one would be more noisy or feel differently than the other. Both seem the same.
