6216 varidrive progress

[Chris727]

I think I have the varidrive fixed on the 6216. This tractor is nothing like a sovereign and was rather difficult to work on. When I bought this tractor the variable speed was not functioning. Members here suggested I needed to clean and free up the variator. I discovered the arm containing the variable sheaves was not free to swing. The arm was frozen in its bushings. Here is the mess I found.

The whole dash/fuel tank assembly had to be removed, though by placing it off to the side I managed to keep most of the wires attached.

Here is the pivot arm needing cleanup with emery cloth.

After freeing the pulleys and arm from the pivot busings I went ahead and drilled and tapped the bushings. They were sandblasted, painted, and had grease fittings installed.

My hope is that by having fittings in place, the next owner can just loosen the dash every couple seasons and squirt in some grease instead of spending countless hours taking the whole thing apart. All cleaned up now.

Busings reinstalled.

All back together after a successful test run!!

[JohnMBerst]

Great job, as will follow your example on my rebuild 6216 also. Time and some money prevent working on it now, but hope to have it for the winter seat time. Have to find the lower part of the steering tower, as the two mounting feet by the engine have broken off by PO. Loose and aids sloppy steering. Just working on the cleaning the front end, and working on getting the motor back up to speed. Thanks again for the post! Well done.sm01

[timack]

^^^^^ :D

[AC_B-1Novice]

Thanks for the info and nice pictures. All us 6216 owners will be glad to see all you have posted. larry

[MowerMechanic]

I have a 6210, now is a 6214^. anyways the varidrive works but goes from nothing to full speed very quickly. I adjusted it sever times per owners manuel to no avail. Once i get my recent engine issues worked out i may have to investigate your findings a little more closely. thanks for the info

[dmartin95]

I'd like to thank Chris727 for starting this thread. I too have a 6216 that has the Variable lever seized up on the pivot assembly. I'm currently in the process of repairing it. Just waiting on the parts to arrive.

[lampoulos]

Guys, I just lubed up the variator on my 6212.5 and put it back to work this morning. Now the speed control lever does nothing and pulling back on the clutch/brake pedal the tractor will speed up, but once you let go it'll pull back down to a crawl. The other thing I noticed is that it operates perfectly on jack stands. Where did I go wrong here? The swing of the variator is free to move and the adjustable sheave in the middle of the pulley moves nicely. I'm stumped on this one. The only thing that I can tell is that one of the belts must be pulling the variator in one direction, but looking everything over all the belts are fine the brake is adjusted all the way out.

[Mel_W]

Sounds to me like you have the wrong size belts on there. 1674898 and 1674899 are the simplicity #s. I use gates power rated 6550 and 6556. the 50 goes on the engine, the 56 for the transmission. Mel

[larry8200]

Thanks for the pictures and information. I have two sixty two hundred series tractors, and at least one need's serious help!

[lampoulos]

I don't think it's belts because they worked fine before. Is it possible that greasing the sheaves revealed a larger problem that I wasn't made aware of before? Going through this again in my mind: -Tractor drives and operates fine (except no variator) -No tension in the transmission (in gear/engine off) so the brake isn't hanging. -The variator pulley swings freely and Sheave moves side to side by hand (no belts) -Ground speed won't change with selection lever but will if you reach forward and pull the clutch pedal all the way back, once you let go it snaps back down to "creep" -Variator operates normally when the drive wheels are up in the air. -Ran through the adjustment process of the tension spring, clutch, and brake with no change. Tension spring is fully extended. I'm just getting familiar with the operational process of this system, and have a feeling I'll know it VERY well when I get this fixed. From what I can tell the only operator input to the variator pulley is its forward and backward motion in the tractor frame. The belts stay stationary, and the movement of the center sheave is promoted by the different positions of the pulley assembly. When it moves side to side the two belts change diameters like the cogs on a bicycle creating the speed change. The tension spring brings the pulley backward (high speed/engagement) I tend to put too much thought into problems that I can't figure out so if any of you guys with more experiance with this systems then me can simplify I'd appreciate it.

[sovereign72]

Is the belt new? I have a few varidrive speed reducers at work that oerate on the same principles with the variable sheaves and I have always had to put new belts on them when they slow down to a crawl then they speed right back up. check the belt width against the dimm of a new one that will tell you how worn it is

[arnoldir]

Hey guys, My thoughts on the variator, but from years ago when I sorted out my 6216. The spring force pulling the clutch pedal up to engage the front belt also has to provide the force to shift out the variator. There should be a spring acting on the variator arm to pull the rear belt tight and hold the variator shifted into low (back belt making small circle : front belt making larger) When you lift your foot the tractor should start to move with about 1/2 the pedal travel left to go. As your start to roll along the pedal spring and wedging force of the front belt over take the spring force on the variator arm and cause it to shift out. If the load on the axle shaft increases, this added torque demand causes more wedging force in the rear belt and shifts the variator towards the starting ratio. The speed control lever is just an adjustable stop acting on the variator arm to limit the amount it can up shift. It sounds like there is some spring missing or broken. I seem to remember some type of wound up springs in the variator arm, but would need to find the parts diagram on line to refresh my memory. I'll try and check back to see if you can't get this sorted. Good luck.

[lampoulos]

Well, I think I got her taken care of today. Since I couldn't figure out any good solution to the issue I took the variator pulley clean out of the tractor and went through it and the pivot mounts. Turns out the variator pulley was free enough for me to grab by hand and move around when it was on the tractor, but not free enough for the tractor to operate correctly. Once it was on the bench I could see that I couldn't even move the pivot bushings by hand. I cleaned it all up and slapped it back in. Took it for a test spin and she runs like a champ. Thanks for the advise guys! Now I'm ready for the next snow.

[lampoulos]

We just got our first significant snowfall since I went through this repair and she ran like a champ blowing snow. We got about 8 inches which isn't much but the wind was gusting around 40 mph all night and into this evening making for the pretty good drifts. Now that is running so well I almost wish there was a way to slow the ground speed down a bit more for operating though the heavy stuff, though I really didn't have any trouble. Anyway thanks Chris for posting this repair. It saved me.

[Paul M.Murphy]

Chris 

Thanks for the information and photos . It makes watching this web site worthwhile. 

That is nice solid looking tractor..

Paul

[davidmoll]

Hi all, I thought I had the same issue on my variable speed drive which I had blown off repairing for a couple of years and just pulled the brake pedal back when she slowed going up hill.  I thought I had seized swing arms on the variator pulley.  Disassembled like Chris did only to find out the swing arm was fine.  Was glad I took it all apart to clean all the years of crud under there.  It turned out that the center pulley on the variator pulley was also fine.  Lubricated the pulley and swing arms.  Turned out changing the drive belt and pto belt solved the slowing issue going up hills.  It was good taking it apart to also fix a small gas tank leak and sure up the steering, fix the starter switch and replaced my headlight switch.  All working great and looking forward to seat time blowing snow using my headlights again versus a head lamp strapped to my head!

 

dave