Is the bottom reverse gear installed so the rounded edges of the teeth are rearward so they mate with the rounded teeth on the idler???

 D17 Transmission Disassembly Tools and Techniques

  I was going to start a new thread for tips and tools for splitting and disassembly of the D17 transmission, but I am going to inlcude it here.

   If the moderator wishes to have it moved let me know. This is not a complete instruction guide and may vary between applications. This is merely some things that I have done that have helped me when no help was around.

   First thing is get a good manual and do your homework. When you find things left out or issues, come here to get your answers!  You won’t find a better helping forum.

   When you are ready to begin make sure you have adequate tools and room to complete the task. This is where the books don't help much. Many of us do not have expensive state of the art equipment just sitting around waiting to be used. I am fortunate enough to have a small shop with mills lathes and drill presses etc and normally a fair supply of iron around. If you don't have these items then it will take you just a little more time is all.

     This method is only as safe as the person performing. Please keep safety in your work at all times. For my method the following tools are needed to complete the task. Your list may vary but the basics will be similar: At least 1 large floor jack, 2 large jack stands, engine hoist and some misc blocking and a digital camera (your very best friend).

     I like to use the engine stand for splitting, moving parts around, and pulling the rear differential housings and axles. Also a tip for working alone, I spent about 100.00 bucks and put an air lift cylinder on my engine hoist which gives you great control and allows you to multi task.

          Once you have read your manual and you feel comfortable or brave enough to proceed you will probably discover that it doesn't always go as planned. The "book" says support both parts of the tractor being split, remove the bolts and just roll the tractor away. That is all fine and dandy when they wrote the book 50 years ago, but things do weather over time and changes the way we do things. You may very well notice that after doing all of the things the book says the tractor is still stuck together and won't budge. You can't hook you 4 wheel drive pickup to it and yank it apart, there is no opening for you to get a prybar or a screwdriver between the housings so what next? I do not recommend lowering your front half down to try and break it away that way, you are asking for trouble. If all else fails this is what I do: (I may get some fellow mates to disagree on this but it does work). Find an inconspicuous place on the side of the housing close to the bottom and take your angle grinder with a thin cut off blade on it, and make a small indentation (cut) between the two housings. This will allow you to get a small prybar or similar between the cracks and force the gasket apart.

    The next thing you will discover when splitting is you will begin to run out of jacks, jackstands etc to support all of the heavy parts. Rather than getting a bigger stack of 2x4's and trying to support a couple of ton of iron with the risk of killing yourself, here is what I do for very little money. Once you have the transmission split from the differential I start rounding up to 2 or 3 inch angle iron long enough to fit to the top of the transmission housing around 3 feet or so. Next if you don't have an end mill to make exact holes, measure the distance between one of the top holes on the side and one of the bottom holes on the same side and drill you a couple of "oversize holes" in the angle to match these. Your not going to get them exact so over drill them at least two or three sizes too big so you can offset the difference, you don't care how they look just so they are safe. Now put bolts through both holes and tighten them up and the same for the opposite side of the transmission. You now have your front supports and eventually will free up that floor jack. Using the same technique make two more in the same fashion for the other half you just split and bolt them in place. Now you can ease your floor jack off and free it up.

     When you move to the rear to remove your Lift Arm Housing ,place your jack in the center back and remove your lift arm housing. Get a good long strap and secure a loop around the lift arm housing from your engine hoist and center it so it doesn't get away from you when it breaks loose. You read your book right? So you have already pulled your pto shaft and unhooked and removed your lift cylinder. Now if the housing is stuck and you can not get a pry bar in anywhere then you may have to use your angle grinder again as we did before. Once it is down and out of the way you can access the differential components. Before you proceed you need to make at least one more angle iron leg brace to place on the the back of the housing so you can get your jack out of the way to clean up all the oil that leaked out. This leg you can get by using one bolt and line up the other hole with the guide pin sticking out. This will save you a little time and work and once you tighten it, it will be safe and secure. Keep following your book and remove the rear axle housings very carefully, preferably with the engine hoist and strap and move aside. If the drum came out with it pull if off the shaft and put aside. With both axles removed you are ready to remove the ring gear assembly. Before you start get you a couple of large dowels, broom handle etc and put in the ends of the ring gear assembly through the side holes so it doesn't fall when you remove the bearing housings next.

    Follow the book and remove the bolts from the axle housing bearing retainers. These housings have an oring seal and are about 2 bucks from Allis so don't consider reusing them. You will need to take a brass punch or small block of wood inside the differential housing and tap out the bearing housings outward until they are free. Once the oring is out of the housing they will come off easy. Make sure you replace the seals in the housing before reinstalling. Your ring gear assembly is now free. It is heavy and sharp so some gloves may be nice. You will need to hold it up and pull the dowels at the same time. When you remove it bring it straight back out the rear. There is not much clearance here!

     Next you will be ready to remove your hand clutch and the main input shaft according to the instructions. You will notice that most likely your will encounter snap rings that have no holes in them to remove them and not enough room to get anything else in their to aid in getting them off the shaft. What I do now is get a small, good sharp center punch and mark each side of the snap ring and drill the two holes in them. Keep it under an 1/8" and centered or it will be too close to the edge. Now you can use your regular snap ring pliers to remove it and possibly save it. The material of the ring is a little hard so make sure you have a good fresh bit to drill with, but a regular steel bit will work.

     The book says to just tap the main shaft out the rear housing. Hope yours comes right out but I bet it don't. It may take a lot of tapping to drive it out. Mine came out hard all the way to the end. You have a double roller bearing with a couple of inches of surface so a normal tap isn't going to cut it. If you do not have a large brass shaft or punch you will probably need to find a small oak 4x4 and a 3 lb hammer. Before you begin this so called tapping I would advise that you put some type of a shim wedge between your 2 piece split ring collar and the rear part of the main shaft. I broke one half of my split ring from driving on it and could have prevented it by putting a wedge between it. Once you have moved it about 3/4" you can slide the collar back and remove the split rings. Now is a good time to get you a shaft, broom handle or something similar a couple of feet long and clamp it to the rear differential somewhere close so when the pinion shaft comes out you can start taking your gears off and sliding them right onto the shaft so you don't mix up how they go. Also if you are working alone it would be a good idea to stuff something in the differential incase the pinion comes flying out or drops and dings up your bearing. I put a bunch of my dirty rags in mine. Any comments or criticism is welcome. If we can improve this no hard feeling here! I will begin to write some assembly tools and tips as well in the next few days. Also are a few small images to clarify some of text.

Tim

D17 Transmission Assembly Tools and Techniques

    As promised I am adding a few pointers for assembly of this project. Once you have received all your new gaskets, bearings, seals etc and double checked to make sure they are right we will proceed.

   You will find that some of the gaskets come off very hard after the years. I still prefer using a razor blade scraper to get down to the metal surfaces. You will notice that some of the casting flaws will catch on your blades every now and then and break your blades (make sure you have your safety glasses on for this) so make sure you have a handful of razor blades before you start. Once you have all of your gaskets cleaned off, clean out all the junk from the housings and swab it out good.

    Now get all your pinion and main shaft parts and gears ready to go. Here is a tip for putting the pinion shaft in yourself . Get you a couple of feet of good wire and put two bolts in your top transmission housing straight across from one another near the front of the transmission. Wrap one side of the wire 2 or 3 turns around the bolt farthest from where you are standing and leave the other end of it hanging. Get your pinion shaft and place it through your back housing all the way to the bearing edge and hold onto the shaft with the other hand. Now with one hand free start feeding your gears etc onto the shaft. Then in order to free up your other hand grab your wire and loop under the front part of the shaft and lift it up until it is nearly centered in the front housing and give it a couple of wraps around the other bolt on the top housing. This will temporarily hold it in place while you go to the rear and get your pinion started up into the bearing housing. When you get ready to do your so called “tapping” your shaft into the housing you will need a hard block or similar to tap in the center of the pinion and drive into place. When you get within about ¾” or so from being into place, you will need to put on your “split ring”. I usually grease them up good with some heavy grease so they will temporarily stick into place and not fall out. Slide your retainer over the top of them when done to hold it together. Don’t be afraid to put a wad of grease on this as well to help hold it in place. Keep checking after each tap to make sure it doesn’t come apart. Note; when tapping your shaft into place you will need to keep slacking your wire that is holding the end of your shaft up. Once you have started the pinion into that bearing housing I realize the shaft holds it self, however the wire at this time serves to hold the gears from flying off the front of the shaft during the tapping process. This image is on the bottom shaft assembly but the same technique is used on the top:

    Once you have your pinion and gears in place make sure your gears all turn freely and each gear functions properly and is free. If your pinion shaft is binding at all you probably drove it in a little to far. If this happens make sure you have your snap ring on the front of the shaft and then give it a good tap backwards and it should free right up. If all is well and you get your rear bearing retainer plate on and all bolts tight, you will need about 18-20” of steel wire .050” or less in diameter  to put through the bolt heads as the book indicates. End up with your splice for the wires where you have room to work and about ½ way in the middle of two bolts. This will give you enough room to twist the ends together. Once done clip off any excess and flatten all wire down tight against the flange. This will prevent it from getting caught in your ring gear.

    With all of your parts cleaned good install all of your seals. When you are installing the new orings, especially the ones on the rear axles bearing holders, do not roll them into the grooves they fit in, but rather start one side of it down into the groove and “carefully” stretch it just enough to get the remainder of it into the groove. This will prevent the oring from twisting that you get from rolling it into position. You want it to lay straight when it is in the groove to prevent from catching during assembly, since it is a real tight fit. Right before assembly put a little Vaseline on it all the way around to help it go together.

    When working alone and installing the ring gear assembly into the housing you will need a couple of dowels, broom handles etc to fit though the axle housing into the rear end to hold it up during assembly. Once you have it suspended then you can get your bearing housing and shims and slide them over your dowels, line it up and carefully push them into place. Make sure all of your shims are lined up with the bolt holes during assembly. Don’t use the retainer bolts to draw your bearing housing into place. If it is clean and lubed you will be able to put them in by hand by turning them a little during assembly. This will prevent you from pinching one of the orings. Once they are in place tighten them up, Check now and insure it rotates freely and your ring gear and pinion gap are good. If you have kept all of your shims straight on each side it should go back to where it was. If you don’t have the dial indicators etc. to check exact clearance make sure that there is a little play back and forth between the ring gear and pinion. I would say no more than 1/8” back and forth just as a guideline.

     When you are ready to install the rear axle housings I like to use the engine hoist and put the strap as far out as it will go and it will be balanced then. Make sure your brakes are spread clear apart and put a little grease on the ends of the splines to help it to go together easier. Once you are lined up and ready to start the axles into place, go easy and not bump the inner seals. If you have it lined up it should go in a good ways and stop. At this point turn your outer wheel hub a little back and forth and it should go all the way in. Never draw it in with the bolts, it should always go together fairly easy by hand. Also keep an eye that your don’t catch on your brake shoe linings going in.