Removal Removal of the clutch required the following:
• Remove the rear cover,
• Get the drive belt out of the way,
• Disconnect the clutch yoke,
• Disconnect the drive chain,
• Disconnect the cutter deck counterbalance spring, and
• unbolt the outer bearing carriers
Removal of the transmission started with removing the rear cover (seat etc) and battery (a safety factor but mostly for ease of access).
Next step was to release the drive belt from the V pulley, which necessitated disengaging the small leaf spring plate from the notch bar by poking a screwdriver in the neatly positioned hole in the V-pulley plate, then using a spring hook tool to remove the spring from the end of the carrier bar. The Greenfield diagram shows the idea.
Not having a Greenfield spring hook tool I crafted one out of fencing wire – it worked well enough. Disconnect the spring from the end of the carrier bar and remove the spring anchor to simplify access. The spring will probably fall off the pulley mount but that’s OK because it’s easy to put back on. Push the belt pulley backwards to release the drive belt and take the drive belt loop out of the way; out the back of the mower is OK.
Disconnecting the clutch yoke bar only requires removal of the circlips connecting it to the clutch links. Access is reasonable and a screwdriver will prize the circlips off, just don’t let them get away
. It is not necessary to disassemble the yoke bar at this stage. Removal is facilitated by loosening the bolt holding the rear clutch link guide to the frame tray, and rotating it out from around the rear clutch link. This may not be necessary, and doing the bolt back up again involves grovelling upside down to get to the well-hidden nut under the tray.
Disconnecting the drive chain without finding the joining link involves first undoing the bolt holding the disk chain guard washer onto the end of the transmission shaft. On my mower the bolt showed the remains of a medium strength thread locker, so that was used for reassembly. Loosen the chain tensioner bolted to the side of the frame in front of the clutch sprocket and get it as far forwards as possible using the adjuster bolts at the front of the tensioner plate. This gives enough slack in the drive chain to unhook it from the large sprocket on the axle; you can then push the mower backwards to run the unhooked chain around the large sprocket, after which it can be disconnected from the small drive sprocket on the transmission. This was a slightly difficult process because the chain did not have much space between the large sprocket and the tyre, and it got quite tight near the end of rotation. It might have been better to unhook the chain from the front of the large sprocket and push the mower forwards – don’t know.
The cutter deck counterbalance spring runs alongside the wheel side of the transmission and has to be removed to give enough room for the transmission to be lifted out. Bring the cutter up to its maximum height to unload the spring as much as possible. Get a 14mm socket and ratchet driver onto the nut at the back of the frame because it’s got lots of turns before it lets go. Pull the shaft out and move the counterbalance spring/shaft away from the transmission.
The transmission is held into the mower frame by two sets of bearing plates, one set on each side of the transmission clutch pulleys. The bolts holding the bearing plates onto the sprocket-side frame have plenty of space and are easy to remove. The bearing plates on the battery side are a different matter. The heads of the bolts have very little clearance to the hub of the clutch pulley on the battery side, and can only be removed from the frame by use of a cut out milled into the hub of the pulley on the battery side. On my mower this cut out is not present on the other clutch pulley on the sprocket side of the transmission, which did eventually become a gotcha. Even with the cut out there is little space to wrangle the bolt out, but it is possible (and necessary).
Having done this once it would only take 30 minutes or so to get the transmission out of the mower again.
