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When I mow, I'm finding a delay when I go from reverse to forward on the right side tranny. It wasn't there before, and it slowly gets going and then gets up to speed quickly.

I'm wondering if this is an adjustment issue, do I need to change the fluid again or do I need to rebuild the unit? If so, can I find a rebuild kit for it?

Nobody seems to care about this or has an opinion, so I moved on. However, in the interest of others having my problem and wanting a solution, I'll post how I fixed this. Youtube had a video on the subject that seemed to pinpoint the problem and so I was emboldened to go through the right transmission. Zero Turn Transaxle No, it wasn't perfectly my trans, as I had no oil pump where the input shaft conveniently extends through to be tapped on. However, being a mechanic for 30+ years, I pulled out the input using a slide hammer bearing puller. Just like the video, one of the check valves was loose, so I added a bit of Loctite Blue and hammered her home with my impact. I removed the other check valve and did the same procedure. I carefully scraped all the gasket surfaces and polished them with a roloc disc. I don't have my parts cleaner up yet, so I emptied 2 1/2 cans of brake cleaner to totally remove any particles in there. Since the trans was apart for almost a week waiting for the seal kit, each gear, bearing and shaft got the same treatment. Re-assembly was fairly straightforward, except for the very beginning when you have to assemble the pump with the six pistons and the servo with its six pistons sitting at a right angle to that. The springs make it hard to slide the pump in, so I got a nylon spatula, and trimmed it to the width of the pump body to help me press down on it while getting it to go. Wow. That was kind of easy. There was one nick on the spatula that troubled me. Next time, I'll trim a SS spatula so I don't contaminate the gears. My luck is that this 'nick' will wind up in a check valve at some point. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. I hope it finds its way into the filter quickly and I don't have to worry about it. I went and changed oil in both units and then proceeded to get it primed. It took a push or two for the left side, but I was at it for a long time to get the right side all purged and working. It also took five quarts and not four. There was a lot of oil in the pump and servo that don't get changed during normal maintenance. No more hesitation though and it feels stronger than the left side now. Hmnnnn. I might pull the left side in the winter. The seal kit was about $45ish and the RTV was probably around $5. It took about 20 minutes to pull the trans, a half hour to disassemble, an hour to clean it, forty five minutes to re-assemble and another forty for the install and bleed. This was my first time in one of these, so I was in no rush to make time. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Not having to redo it all was priceless. I was comfortable enough having watched the video to not take lots and lots of pics. Caveat: There is one small part that is hard to see and took me a long time to find when I pulled everything apart. It gets mentioned in the video, but like the assembly of the pump/servo sub-assembly, it wasn't given proper attention. It's about 1/4" square and an 1/8" thick. It fits in a small cavity that's visible when you're putting in the servo output shaft, round side towards the shaft. It's the bypass mechanism and the shaft sits on it and allows the oil to bypass when we pull on the tab. Find it. Don't lose it. Don't forget to put it back. Oh yes: use assembly fluid liberally.

EDIT =>In the cost breakdown, I forgot the $55 of synthetic oil and the $12 in filters.

Now I am not trying to be demeening or abusive in any way shape or form but you don not seem to understand how this forum works.
It is not Face Book where every post must be responded to in less than 15 nano seconds.

Secondly there is a nice polite & slightly humourios method to draw attention to the fact your thread had not been answered :anyone:.
Unless a person has posted to a particular thread , they will have no idea if any one else has answered it .
Most of the regular responders use the "new post" search so unless there has been a response to a thread in the previous 24 hours they will not see a thread again.
There have been people who have ended up bumping their thread a dozen or so times before they got the information that they sought.

Also not every person on the forum has worked on every mower.
I for one knock over around 300 jobs a year but am yet to lay hands on a Huster so I am in no position to offer any meaningful assistance to you.

I agree with Bert, but thought I should add this. You started this thread on 7-14 and on 1-17 you posted this in another thread. “I run a forum for diving with many professionals, and we would not allow such an attack. With that, I'm out of your special forum here. Nothing here I really need. Have fun. Don't be so harsh with the noobs.” Maybe that is another reason no one responded. I also see very few Hustlers and 95% of the time I have found that when I find trannies with internal problems, due to our labor rate and cost of individual parts, it is cheaper to replace than rebuild, just using your times I would estimate $400. To that you should add new filter and oil, plus our time to diagnose, write an estimate and discuss with the customer and test unit on completion. Now if I thought there might be a leftover piece in the unit, it means triple check and find it, can’t pray it finds the filter first. Plus, being a commercial business we warranty our work like this for 120 days. New tranny warranty is one year. You don’t have to worry if you are working on your own unit, but every good business person and technician spends extra time double and triple checking even the simplest things, because comebacks can be our kiss of death. People who come here ask the professionals how they would fix a problem and it would be very unprofessional for us to advise them to bypass safety and do questionable things. To 75% of people feel that people in all repair businesses over charge people and only go to them when “Joe down the street” can’t fix it. Do you realize how much it costs the business and the techs each year in tools, diagnostic equipment, update schools and seminars, to meet the requirements of each manufacturer to do warranty work and be the professional you go to when you can’t fix it. On this forum we just ask for a little patience and respect in return for trying to help anyone. I’ll bet the same holds true for your business and diving forum. Hope this explains why we a a little harsh at times.

Eh. Give him a break. I'm glad he posted what he found.

bertsmobile1 said:

Now I am not trying to be demeening or abusive in any way shape or form but you don not seem to understand how this forum works. It is not Face Book where every post must be responded to in less than 15 nano seconds.

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I first posted 21 days ago. You're the first to reply. Not sure how that is "15 nano seconds". I did want an answer to my query, but I certainly got what I paid for.

bertsmobile1 said:

Secondly there is a nice polite & slightly humourios method to draw attention to the fact your thread had not been answered :anyone:.

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Bumping is often discouraged on many forums. It might be OK on such a slow forum and I'll try to remember that.

bertsmobile1 said:

Also not every person on the forum has worked on every mower.

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Oh yeah, I get it. That's why I gave up on an answer here in the Hustler section and moved on. Would you rather I lie and post a profuse "Thanks"??? There are other resources out there that had the answer and I don't mind pointing them out. I fixed the problem and did the right thing and posted how I fixed it. I even posted a link for the next guy who does a search here to find and benefit from.

turboawd said:

Eh. Give him a break. I'm glad he posted what he found.

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Thanks! Hopefully it will help others.

A couple of notes. For some reason, I can't quote Rivets post. Maybe he has me on ignore or something. Don't know and don't care.

As I pointed out before, I was a professional mechanic for some thirty years. I've done more than my share of quoting, fixing and so on, but on cars. Fixing a frickin mower is so much easier than that. BUT, and I do have a big butt, I didn't ask in the pro corner: I asked in the Hustler forum. Oh, I've done my bit in the automotive and tire forums when the internet first became popular and I learned quickly to answer patiently and never tell anyone off: just like I do in real life. I like any forum I'm in to grow in popularity, and the only way to do that is to be friendly to everyone. People come here to ask questions because they have real problems and are looking to others for wisdom and hopefully some insight. It rarely moves at the speed of light and so a few of them get a antsy and do their best to draw attention to their plight. Never reply to impatience with more impatience. I thought it was a horrible way to treat others in the other thread and I still do. You may justify your meanness in any way that you want. Or... you can take my constructive criticism as it was intended.

Me? I want a zillion people in the Hustler section and I don't care if you're a professional or a rank amateur. Professionals built the Titanic while amateurs built the Ark. We can learn from each other and still be nice. The world needs more nice and the ability to take a little constructive criticism. Being nice is the way to grow the forum and make it a bit more relevant.

The Chairman said:

A couple of notes. For some reason, I can't quote Rivets post. Maybe he has me on ignore or something. Don't know and don't care.

As I pointed out before, I was a professional mechanic for some thirty years. I've done more than my share of quoting, fixing and so on, but on cars. Fixing a frickin mower is so much easier than that. BUT, and I do have a big butt, I didn't ask in the pro corner: I asked in the Hustler forum. Oh, I've done my bit in the automotive and tire forums when the internet first became popular and I learned quickly to answer patiently and never tell anyone off: just like I do in real life. I like any forum I'm in to grow in popularity, and the only way to do that is to be friendly to everyone. People come here to ask questions because they have real problems and are looking to others for wisdom and hopefully some insight. It rarely moves at the speed of light and so a few of them get a antsy and do their best to draw attention to their plight. Never reply to impatience with more impatience. I thought it was a horrible way to treat others in the other thread and I still do. You may justify your meanness in any way that you want. Or... you can take my constructive criticism as it was intended.

I want a zillion people in the Hustler section and I don't care if you're a professional or a rank amateur. Professionals built the Titanic while amateurs built the Ark. We can learn from each other and still be nice. The world needs more nice and the ability to take a little constructive criticism. Being nice is the way to grow the forum and make it a bit more relevant.

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This is a big forum generally near 100 posts a day so no one worries much about people bumping , in fact we rather like it ( well I do in any case ) because when i see a thread that has not been answered meaningfully I get encouraged to do some searching.
i keep asking the admin to move the :welcome::anyone::newhere: emojies to the front page so they can easily be accessed and hopefully used more often.
It does lift the tone a tad.
There is no one on here who is fundamentally nasty and most are quite patient.

About the only thing that gets people cranky is poster who go off in a petulant hissy fit because they are not patient enough to wait for an answer or take offence that they have not gotten an answer.
And I have been in the same boat as you of the dozen or so threads I have started because I was stuck only 3 ever resulted in a meaningful answer.
And the nano second jibe was don to the first two posts about 90 minutes apart.

And credit where it is due it is good that you posted what you did to fix your mower so :thumbsup: we do appreciate that.

bertsmobile1 said:

And the nano second jibe was don to the first two posts about 90 minutes apart.

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The second post did not chide the forum for an answer. I merely had another thought on the matter. I do that as I suss things out and often putting them down in writing helps.

bertsmobile1 said:

And credit where it is due it is good that you posted what you did to fix your mower so :thumbsup: we do appreciate that.

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Thanks. I do try.

There's not much out there that I can't repair. While I'm retired from the auto industry and am now working in the diving industry, time is still precious to me. I'm certain that time is precious to everyone here. I've been managing a very successful forum, think over a hundred posts an hour, for almost two decades now. Friendliness grows a forum, while snarky, off topic rants because someone shows a bit of urgency will keep a forum small by running off all the noobs. Instead of complaining how horrible a person he is for giving us a poorly worded question, show some compassion and spend more time answering his question than bashing him for his lack of netiquette. It's easy to smack someone down... let's try to encourage them instead.

First, I don’t know why you can’t quote me, I’ve been on this forum since March of 2012 and have never blocked anything in my profile or posts. Second, yes I do get “nasty” with individuals who think they are better than everyone else on this forum or demean the forum. If you act like a “bully” you’ll be treated like a “bully “. There are a few who don’t like me, but I’ve got big shoulders and for everyone of them there are a 100 who have said thanks for the help. Like Bert, I to have started threads when I get stuck, hoping someone has seen the problem. Twice I’ve received help, but that’s OK as I understand that when I’m stuck it’s a problem that rarely happens. Third, there are many times that I see people post a problem, whom I figure will either do more harm to their unit, what they want to do will make the unit a safety hazard or will have no idea or have no expertise to solve the problem if directions are given. Because you never gave us a hint of your experience, I decided not to reply, guess that makes me a bad and nasty guy.

Still won't let me quote you.

So, when you think someone's being a bully, you become a bully? Probably best we avoid each other while here then. I'll point out bullies, but I won't turn "mean and nasty" in return. It's not friendly and not my style. Most mean and nasty people don't like being exposed in such a way. Makes them meaner and nastier. I gravitate towards friendly people.

Back to the topic... I finally got to get on my mower yesterday. My nephew is in town and had mowed my entire 10.82 acres. I was surprised and pleased at the same time. But, I still hadn't gotten to do a test drive, so off I went in search of dribs and drabs that had been missed. There weren't many, but the hesitation is gone, gone, gone. Tightening that check valve really made a difference.

A couple of more asides from the build. There were "covers" over the two check valves. It looked like they kept the oil from bypassing the filter, but you had to put a hole in them to take them out. I believe this renders them mostly useless, and wonder if anyone has a line on them? They were in the seal kit, but none of the other seals were leaking, and I would have rather have just replaced those two caps.

Second aside: This was the first time I had used RTV Ultra Blue. There's an inner line and outer line you have to do on the outer cover. It's definitely more viscous than I remember RTV Blue being, and it was far more predictable in the application. Nice. I'd rather use gaskets, but this is how it comes from the factory. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the unused portion to stiffen beyond usability. This might be the first time in two years I've been that I needed any.

Third aside: I finally got my parts cleaner set up and just need the proper solvent for it. I'm looking forward to not wasting cans of brake cleaner in the future.

If you used to repair engines for a living I am sure you hate silicone just as much as I do.
I add 20 minutes to the service time of anything that comes in with silicon on it to cove the time it takes to remove the moungrel stuff.

Hope you haang around for a few years , it will be interesting to see how long the repair remains good for.
I used to do repairs on hydros but we now have a specialist rebuilder who refaces the valve chests & plates for about 1/3 the price of a rebuild kit.
The first time I did one i spend hundreds of hours watching videos of supposed mechanics who pulled the hydros apart , left the box open on the bench for days then reassembled them bare handed.
I doubt any of them ran for more than 12 months but of course you rarely see the failures.

bertsmobile1 said:

If you used to repair engines for a living I am sure you hate silicone just as much as I do.
I add 20 minutes to the service time of anything that comes in with silicon on it to cove the time it takes to remove the moungrel stuff.

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Sometimes it's what comes from the factory. Roloc discs.

bertsmobile1 said:

Hope you haang around for a few years , it will be interesting to see how long the repair remains good for.

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The new one only lasted two years. This was easier than a THM200, and I've done plenty of those with no comebacks. We'll see how she does. I have to say that the pump/servo design was cool to see up close and I was able to suss out how the Swash plate worked. It's no longer a 'black box' to me. We're pouring the slab for my compressor, dust collector and (soon) Scuba compressor next week. That means, I'll be able to use my fast tools to clean things like gasket material. It will be nice to have air in the shop. My Ryobi impacts are fine, but I miss my "real" impacts.

If I live long enough to buy again, I'll definitely be going with a commercial zero-turn with a 72" swath. I've about wore this puppy out in two years.

Spring update... I had noted a bit of slippage/burning smell on the first use this year. The belt was loose, so I tightened it up. It got loose again and then it outright broke. i changed to a new belt that was i inch smaller. I went with a 50inch rather than a 51 inch belt. Harder to do the final connections, but she's running great with the right side out pacing the left just a tad. I was a bit concerned as I was mowing though, I'm 6+hours into the job when I feel the left side slipping, and slipping a lot. I'm getting feels that I was going to have to reman the left side now. I was heading to the ag-shed to suss this out, when phooosh. The left tire went flat. I had snagged the sidewall on a Hercules Club (a very thorny tree) and she was flat. Kind of funny, but I guess the slipping was the rim spinning in the tire. Kinda funny. Rim and Tire should be here next week.

Watch the bearings in the idlers.
Although all of the diagrams show a double row custom bearing nearly all of them are plain old deep groove.
!" on a 50" belt is bit much.
Generally I would not consider dropping a full inch on anything under 100"

bertsmobile1 said:

Generally I would not consider dropping a full inch on anything under 100"

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The belt doesn't have a lot of extra tension on it. With the longer belt, any extra tension will allow the belt to jump the pulley and get cut by the fan. I would have gone to 50.5" but I don't find that in a fractional HP belt.