# gear shift lever adjustment



## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

Hello, 

I have a Husqvarna ST 227P snow blower, Last season I put it away with everything working fine. 
However when I went to use it, gears 1,2,3, FWD would put the machine into reverse. I took the bottom cover off and can see that gear 3,2,1 and reverse are all on the right side of the friction wheel, and Gear 4,5,6 are on the left side of the wheel to put it into FWD. I am trying to find a way to adjust the spring or the arm on the gear selection lever so that I can put it back in the right order. 

any help is greatly appreciated

Thank you


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

Welcome! 

Does anything look broken? Usually that sort of thing would be an adjustment problem. But this sounds like you're pretty-far out of adjustment, which seems odd if it happened at random. 

The owner/service manual for your machine might have instructions for adjusting the drivetrain. If not, you'd want all the forward speeds to be on the proper side of the friction wheel, and the reverse speed(s) to be on the other side. As a starting point, I'd adjust it so that first-gear forward, and first-gear reverse, were about equal distances from the center of the friction wheel. You don't want either one of those to put the rubber disk right at the center of the friction wheel, or the machine won't go anywhere (and will just grind away at the rubber disk). 

There should be some sort of adjustment feature on the linkage or cable coming from the gear-selection lever.


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## Darryl G (Feb 5, 2017)

Sounds like something got bumped and dislocated/isn't seated properly where it belongs...


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## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

yeah i've looked everywhere on it for anything broken but the machine still runs fine and i don't see anything out of the norm. I can use it in gear 4,5,6 for FWD and I now have 4 gears for reverse essentially. As far as I can tell its a straight cable from the shifter lever to the gear that slides across the bar that touches the friction wheel. there is however a spring that seems like it should be a hard stop that the shifter level cable connects too, but it's allowing the the slider to go to far to the right, I was hoping someone had a similar problem and knew how to adjust that spring 

there is an inline adjustment for the cable but it only moves 1/2 inch either way


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

If you can post pictures, that might help people that aren't familiar with the machine first-hand. 

If you can't get an answer here, you could also try asking in the Husqvarna forum: 
Husqvarna Snowblowers - Snowblower Forum : Snow Blower Forums


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## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

Ok here are some pictures. The first one is I believe fear 3, the 2nd picture is reverse, the 3rd picture is the in line adjustment and the last one should be 6th gear


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## Darryl G (Feb 5, 2017)

And the cable is seated at the handle properly? It reminds me of when the cable on my bike brakes gets out of place (actually the quick release to take the wheel off gets bumped) so that it has a new origin point and works improperly (too loose).


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## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

yeah the cable connects to the bottom of the handle and the bolt goes through the bar from there. So I don't see where else is could seat


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

It still seems like a good question, though, maybe it can help understand the problem. With the way the gear-selection lever works, is the cable effectively too-short, or too-long? 

At the moment, you essentially can't move the gear lever far enough, it needs to go past the 6th-gear position, to get you up to your normal full forward speed (where 6th gear should be). Would moving the handle further require pulling more on the cable, or letting the cable out more? 

This might at least help understand what you're looking for, whether it's something that's already pulling the cable too-tight, or if something has slipped, allowing the cable to essentially be too-long.


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## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

So from what I can see where reverse is the bottom of the selector, and that should have the most slack in the line, and it looks like the spring that is connected to the arm that's connected to the cable lets the rubber wheel go to far on the friction disc. I don't think it's a tension problem because the gear selector only positions where the friction disc starts turning. I'm thinking it's the spring that is pushing the wheel too far to the right. But hard to say


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## Danny (Feb 20, 2017)

Darryl was right all along. Underneath the plastic cover where the pin should be is cracked. And the cable is too loose. 

Thanks for the help! Now to order a new one and switch it all over........


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## Darryl G (Feb 5, 2017)

Glad to help. Hmm, nothing but plastic. It would be nice if they had some sort of reinforcement there...


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