Step one is to go to Kubotabooks.com and download a Workshop Manual.
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Do you have clutch adjustment problems and have to force the shifter?
Dave
Thank you, Dave!
I thought I replied shortly after you posted but now I don't see my reply; maybe I just forgot. That was rude, and I'm sorry.
I spent this morning digging into the problem. It certainly appears that I have to take the top of the transmission off, which in turn means taking off the seat and its mounts, and the sheet metal covers for some smaller transmission levers, and I did all that. The cover is held on by (at least) six bolts, and five of them are perfectly easy and accessible.
The sixth bolt, though, on the right toward the rear, looks really difficult. It is immediately under a heavy casting, with so little clearance that I can't fit my fingernail into the space. Without first pulling the heavy casting off I doubt there's room to completely unload the lock washer, much less pull the bolt out of its hole and lift the transmission cover off the tractor.
The heavy casting obstructing the bolt includes the three point hitch lift arms and the cylinder for the lift pistons, the mount for the three point hitch top link, the mount for the ROPS, a rigid hydraulic line, the adjustment for the three point hitch drop speed, the shifter for 2WD/4WD (IIRC), and the top cover of the differential. Also, this casting includes the mounting point for the box from which extends three point hitch control lever with its mechanical linkage. At first I thought that it was this box blocking the bolt head, but no, the bolt head is a good 5 or 6 millimeters aft of the heavy casting mounting surface the box mates with. I'm not sure what else would become involved in disassembling all of this stuff, but already it looks quite intimidating. And, I've never disassembled this kind of hydraulic stuff. It feels hard to guess what other hidden issues are involved in pulling the three point hitch lift mechanism off the top of the differential.
I have the shop manual, and the best view of this situation is the transmission diagrams on pages M.2-19 and M.2-20, though these are longitudinal sections that are on the tractor centerline and the bolt interference happens maybe 80 mm beyond the plane of the diagrams. In these diagrams you can see where a connecting rod nestles in the lift piston, and there's a butted seam in the castings maybe 100 mm below the end of the connecting rod. It is along this butted seam that the bolt interference happens.
Am I missing something silly? It looks to me like this one bolt, this one corner of the transmission cover, puts the whole project way outside my comfort zone. I'm not even 100% sure I can lift the ROPS by myself, and that's just one part. Did this just turn into a Kubota dealer project?
By the way, I don't have any problems that require forcing the shifter. Somebody else was actually using the tractor when the shifter broke, but I doubt they did much. The break in the shifter looks like a tree stump after felling the tree, where you cut wood from both sides and leave a little wooden hinge to steer the fall: there's fresh broken metal in this hinge zone across the middle of the steel, but more corroded looking areas on either side as if it's been cracking and aging for some time. I think it's just a stress point that fatigued.
Thank you!
