# New to me Toro Powershift 824



## hanyoukimura (Oct 16, 2015)

Seasons Greetings everyone.

We haven't had much snow this winter, but I've been wanting something more beefy than the little Craftsman 522 We've had since new in 2006. Bless it's little heart, it always starts and runs, but between replacing the entire front housing, frequently having to fix the chintzy push mower style handlebars, and it's small size being overwhelmed by bigger storms, I wanted something more.

Came across a Toro Powershift 824 38540 on CL. Said it ran but threw the auger belt all the time. Went with a friend to take a look. It did start and run, but not great. Drive didn't engage either, but the machine was really solid, so I pulled the trigger for $100.

I had done little research beforehand what could cause a belt to come off, and bad impeller shaft bearing was one of the possible causes. I popped the belt cover off, and sure enough I could move the enter shaft around with my hand. The drive belt was on though, so I followed the cable and found that it had simply come off the bracket on the handlebars. Put them back on and tightened the nuts, cleaned the carburetor, replaced teh fuel line, and replaced the corroded and broken ignition switch terminals, and she fired right up! 

Next was the bearing. I disassembly was pretty straight forward for a repair I've never attempted. Cheap air hammer makes a world of difference for getting the pulley off. I'm so impressed with the condition of t his 1995 machine. There's barely any surface rust on the sheet metal (which is nice and robust, there's no flex is in this machine), many of the bolts still had at least some of their zinc coating, and there was no rust on the impeller shaft.






























But this is better:




















I would say that the only tricky bit is the four bolts that hold each side of the augers to the housing. The barrel design makes getting at them tricky. There's access holes but they are fairly small. Getting the bolts off was easy enough, but getting the nuts back on was more of a challenge. To my delight, everything went back together though and works! Today I changed the oil and spark plug. I'm planning to touch up the paint come Spring, but for now I'm thinking of applying fluid film to the impeller housing (looks like it scrapped the paint off the bottom from making contact due to the bad bearing).

I cannot wait to try this machine out. I think I've got the carburetor tuned well. It takes a bit longer than the newer Tecumseh on the Craftsman to idle smoothly, but it does once warmed up, at least the couple times I've run it. The (working) PowerShift feature is an novel idea, I wonder how effective it is? It has electric start as well which also works, and reverse! Such fanciness! 






















I have a couple questions.

Speaking of reverse, I seem to have to hold the gear selector while pressing the handle for it to work, if I let go of the gear selector it goes back to the middle position and stops. Is that normal?
This is more of a joke, but what's the point of 4th Gear? That's practically jogging pace!


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## gibbs296 (Jun 22, 2014)

Nice looking machine! Powershifts get a lot of love around here!!


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## hanyoukimura (Oct 16, 2015)

One other question, the manual says the auger gearbox calls for 85-95 EP. Where does one find that, Toro dealer? I don't see it listed online.


Anyway, since today was actually decent, in addition to the oil change, I cleaned her up, applied a quick coat of wax, and fluid film'd the blower housing and chute. More thorough cleaning to come int he Spring, but at least it's got some protection.


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## classiccat (Mar 1, 2014)

Nice machine! she's lucky you found her!

I never ran this particular model however Reverse was always "momentary" on the older Toros...wouldn't be surprised if that feature carried forward.


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## paulm12 (May 22, 2015)

Looking good. As Gibbs mentioned, there are a few PowerShift fans here, so I am sure they can help out on that feature. Regarding the impeller housing, simple fix, but yes, awkward to reinstall the bolts. I just use grease to hold the bolts in the housing while installing the bearing. Regarding reverse/shifting, it could be as simple as a gunked up hex shaft that is kind of pushing back against the shifter. Did you look underneath? The easiest way is to put the machine up on the housing (service position) and remove the bottom panel. But I usually drain all the gas and oil before doing this. Then clean up the old grease on the shafts and apply lite coating again. The manual may say what type. 

Looking forward to hear your review of the machine in use. 
.


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## SnoThro (Feb 20, 2016)

Few answers for you

The gear box spec states 85-95 gear oil but all the ones I've ever rebuilt, from power shifts to the little 524s, and even back to the 824s of the 80s, have been packed with MAG-1 so I consider them sealed until rebuilt myself. I've been around a lot of these machines and have never seen one leak like an Ariens so I suspect they're all packed with MAG-1 from the factory. Toro seemed to only shift over to a gear oil at assembly with the 2000s power max. I think they offer the alternate spec because getting MAG-1 into a gear box fill hole wont ever happen. As far as where to find 85-95 any auto parts store will carry something close enough as automotive differential or axle oil. Make doubly sure what you buy is safe for yellow metals otherwise the sulfer will pit the gears and bushings. Personally i'd just run it. All of the failures I saw were due to the seals wearing out after 20-30 years of hard use allowing significant water intrusion. Toro knows how to build a very robust auger gear case.

Reverse should lock. If the bar is snapping up back into forward gears the plastic interlock is broken or stuck. If the shift lever stays roughly in place but you simply lose reverse then its just a cable adjustment (looking under the dash its the bottom cable at the front which you want to shorten). When you put it into reverse you're moving a shift collar in the transmission over to engage 4 bosses on a separate gear. If the cable is improperly adjusted or just stretched a bit the collar will no longer make contact or only partial contact which can lead to damage. The bosses aren't really robust either so its always a good idea to cradle the shift lever before releasing the drive handle so it doesn't "slam" back into forward.


If you like the machine enough Toro still offers a differential conversion kit for them to the tune of around $180.

By the way you can get away without taking the gear case out while doing that front bearing by either shimming the 3 bolts in place (notch shim stock so it catches the threads) or using a small magnet and some patience. Did a lot of those too and I agree air hammer is wonderful for lifting the pulley.


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## classiccat (Mar 1, 2014)

SnoThro said:


> *Reverse should lock. *If the bar is snapping up back into forward gears the plastic interlock is broken or stuck. If the shift lever stays roughly in place but you simply lose reverse then its just a cable adjustment (looking under the dash its the bottom cable at the front which you want to shorten). When you put it into reverse you're moving a shift collar in the transmission over to engage 4 bosses on a separate gear. If the cable is improperly adjusted or just stretched a bit the collar will no longer make contact or only partial contact which can lead to damage. The bosses aren't really robust either so its always a good idea to cradle the shift lever before releasing the drive handle so it doesn't "slam" back into forward.


Yeah, that makes sense since 1990 and beyond have deadman controls. :facepalm_zpsdj194qh


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## UNDERTAKER (Dec 30, 2013)

hanyoukimura said:


> One other question, the manual says the auger gearbox calls for 85-95 EP. Where does one find that, Toro dealer? I don't see it listed online.
> 
> 
> Anyway, since today was actually decent, in addition to the oil change, I cleaned her up, applied a quick coat of wax, and fluid film'd the blower housing and chute. More thorough cleaning to come int he Spring, but at least it's got some protection.


*Use 80/90w Non syn Gear oil. The Seals will not hold the Syn STUFF. k:k:k:k:k:k:k:*


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## hanyoukimura (Oct 16, 2015)

Thanks for the info guys!

We finally got some snow last night. Not a lot, only 4" or so. However, it was heavy wet snow that was slushy at the bottom with a layer of ice on top. Pretty messy stuff that would have been very unpleasant to shovel and would have clogged that little Craftsman for sure.

Not the Toro though! It powered through everything, including the end of the driveway. I saw snow go as far as 20 feet or or so, and it never bogged down or clogged! PowerShift feature is actually useful and does indeed help keep the front end from riding up over compacted snow. Love it! Very happy with my acquisition! :grin:
































SnoThro said:


> Few answers for you
> Reverse should lock. If the bar is snapping up back into forward gears the plastic interlock is broken or stuck. If the shift lever stays roughly in place but you simply lose reverse then its just a cable adjustment (looking under the dash its the bottom cable at the front which you want to shorten). When you put it into reverse you're moving a shift collar in the transmission over to engage 4 bosses on a separate gear. If the cable is improperly adjusted or just stretched a bit the collar will no longer make contact or only partial contact which can lead to damage. The bosses aren't really robust either so its always a good idea to cradle the shift lever before releasing the drive handle so it doesn't "slam" back into forward.


If I out it into gear it'll hold for a few seconds then starts to slide out back towards the forward gears. Could that be the cable needing to be adjusted?


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## SnoThro (Feb 20, 2016)

The shift lever should hold its position until you release the drive handle, you'll just lose reverse. If that's the case then yes its just a cable adjustment.


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## KennyW in CT (Feb 24, 2015)

I just replaced the input, forward and reverse bevel gear and slider in a 624 power shift. The new Kit (you can't by the forward/reverse gears or slider separately anymore) has a vertical wall on both sides of the slider tabs versus a ramped lead-in with vertical on one side only. Only thing I can see this doing is causing more grinding when going from forward to reverse and back if the teeth aren't in perfect mesh. The manual says shift on the fly in forward is ok but I've seen worn shifter keys when people do that frequently. The one I just repaired would hold reverse as long as the traction handle was held down but the second you lift the handle just a hair, it will spring back into forward. putting a little more tension on the reverse cable will increase the spring force holding it in reverse. Once it is in reverse, the force of the gears mated to the slider teeth should hold it there with the lever down.


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## Greg13 (Nov 25, 2018)

Reverse is designed to be held, it is a safety feature to keep you from running over yourself. There is no detent to hold the reversing gear in the transmission. I think it states in the owner's manual (downloadable on the Toro site) as well as the parts & service manuals for free.


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## SimplicitySolid22 (Nov 18, 2018)

You showed your new Toro some love so it paid you back. Nice score looks new!!!


So your gear in auger gearbox is non brass.....that is why GL-5 or Gl-6 rating on the 85-95EP!!!!??????? I am guessing?????


https://www.partstree.com/parts/toro/parts/62-0120/




Closest I could find without going up tp 85-140:


https://www.amazon.com/Liqui-Moly-20010-85W-90-Pressure/dp/B001NFC1BM/ref=sr_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1550280528&sr=1-5&keywords=gl5+gear+oil


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## SnoThro (Feb 20, 2016)

Greg13 said:


> Reverse is designed to be held, it is a safety feature to keep you from running over yourself. There is no detent to hold the reversing gear in the transmission. I think it states in the owner's manual (downloadable on the Toro site) as well as the parts & service manuals for free.


There is some confusion as to what we're talking about because no, you don't have to hold the machine in reverse gear while reversing, which is what the OP asked.

Power Shifts have a control box under the dash like a manual transmission. You have 1-4 forward and then the 1-2 reverse. 1-4 moves into a detent, you simply select speed and squeeze the handle. Reverse you pull back into 1 or 2 and while holding the shift lever in the desired reverse speed you squeeze the clutch/drive handle and start going backward. At this point the shift lever is held by an interlock engaged by the clutch or drive handle and does not need to be held in place while you back up. Once you let go of the clutch/drive handle the shift lever will pop back into the forward gear speed selection.

If the shift collar cable is adjusted improperly you can put the shift lever in reverse, squeeze the handle and either nothing will happen or you get reverse until you release hand tension on the shift lever. This is because the collar is not being pulled tight enough to engage while the shift lever is interlocked. To remedy this you shorted the lower cable at the front of the control box which will return tension to the cable while you're interlocked in reverse.


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## hanyoukimura (Oct 16, 2015)

It was indeed the cable. Had too much slack. Adjusted it and reverse works as it should. She's at 100% now! Thanks!


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