# Simplicity woes! Possible hydro problem



## RM171 (Aug 23, 2020)

Hi Everyone.
Brand new to the forums..looking for any recommendations that you might have for this.

Here’s my story:

Father has an old Simplicity “cowboy edition” regent. Had the 14hp briggs with hydro trans. Unknown hours but generally has run like a champ. The engine was pretty hurt recently (lots of smoke and valvetrain noise) so i decided to swap it out with a 17.5 briggs intek that i scored off good ol craigslist.

Engine swap went well. No pulse line to attach to fuel pump. Struck me as being odd.
Looks like i had the wrong dipstick tube (or at least thats what a came to) new one should show up tomorrow or Tuesday. Seems easy enough. Got it to run despite the setback-and it runs great.

Where im stuck is the transmission. There were zero problems with this transmission-never skipped a beat (its why i decided to hold onto the machine). I drove it around and backed it into the garage for surgery to commence....to the engine.

So in the swap, i retained the two piece smaller driveshaft pulley,
All fit... back together no problemo. Fan on top of trans spins....belt was old but routed correctly.

The tractor barely moves! Engages forward and reverse but wont go more than a mile an hour- In either direction. The pedal is very responsive to forward and back -feels like there is hydraulic pressure. What the heck!
yes I've checked the release handle in the back-while it moves, it does stick a little bit...and yes it is engaged afaik.


I figured that the belt was toast (stretched out or something)....so i put on an oem 80 inch belt and while it seems more responsive -still 1mph.

I assume that trans diagnoses is probably the next step, but i find it hard to believe that this trans would just stop working out of the blue without an event or anything (before this zero probs there).

Hoping a simplicity guru can hook me up with some knowledge. I fix cars on the side but this thing is beginning to make me feel like im 16 years old working on my first car.

Help!

Thanks
Rob


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