# John Deere 400 garden tractor question



## mfinder (Jul 14, 2015)

I have been working on an 1982 400 for a neighbor and have got the thing running pretty well. It has the original Kohler 532 and seems to be original all the way around. While under the tractor adjusting a little creep in the hydrostat I found a piece that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have no service manual and don't want to spend the money for this one time job. The piece I refer to appears to be a neutral stop of some sort. It is a swing arm with a roller that fits into an indent on the hydrostat position arm. (the arm where the hydrostat control shaft attaches.
The arm in question was froze up and I freed that up. The roller was mangled pretty good so I found a roller that works perfectly and replaced that, but now it is, of course just dangling there. It seems that a spring of some sort is needed to hold the arm against the Hydro control. This arm has a hole where I am guessing a spring attaches but I can't find anyplace that the other end would attach except a flat plate on the Hydro control arm just above the detente where the roller would rest. If I attach a spring to this it appears that every time you moved your hydro select arm to forward or reverse the spring would tend to pull it back to neutral. That doesn't seem a good idea. Can anyone clarify this. The tractor runs fine with out this little deal so I am wondering what it is all about.


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## film495 (Nov 1, 2013)

I think my old 1973 hydrostatic transmission, Ariens S12 is similar. I have a safety brake that jams the transmission into neutral when pressed. I'm not looking at it right now, but some of the attachments, I believe just have a washer and a hole with a cotter pin through, that just sort of holds the part into place. I've looked at this a couple times, and wondered if it was original, because some of the controls seems to be what I would consider loose, but seem to function correctly. Likely, someone who owns that machine will chime in.

You're reminding me I need to adjust my transmission as I have some creep I've developed over the last year that is problematic and annoying.


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## mfinder (Jul 14, 2015)

Film thanks for the input. On this tractor the piece is for sure original. I say this because the point at which the flat arm attaches to the frame consist of a a tube welded onto and perpendicular to the flat bar. Inside this tube is a solid round bar with a hex nut neatly welded to the end and an off center hole drilled through it. The mounting bolt for this whole assembly passes through this hole and is bolted to the frame. This inner tube is free to rotate inside the outer tube which, as I said, is welded to the flat arm. This allows for a forward or aft adjustment of the flat bar. If you loosen the mounting bolt you can move the flat bar fore or aft by turning the hex nut on the solid tube with the offset mounting hole. The other end of the flat bar, and it is about 6 inches long in length and about 1/4 inch thick and 1 inch wide, has the roller mounted perpendicular to the bar and at the very end is a small hole. The roller aligns perfectly with a small crescent shaped indent in the bottom of a fan shaped piece that is the swivel for the hydro. A control rod runs from the upper pedestal down to this fan shaped flat piece and the hydro control arm connects to it. So as you go forward or reverse the fan shape piece moves in an arc and the piece I am curious about rides up against this fan shaped piece, I think, and the roller slips into the detente, or it would if there was a spring to hold the whole thing up against the fan shaped piece. But it would not lock anything and that is why I am curious about it. There is a spring that pulls the hydro control on the pedestal into a neutral slot and holds it there. So you move the control to the right, take it out of the slot and push forward or pull back to go. So I can't figure out why there would be a need for another neutral stop down below. Especially a stop that really wouldn't stop anything. At most it would just give you something you would feel as you moved fore and aft past neutral with the control arm. Sure would like to hear from someone who owns the tractor. The way the brake set locks the hydro on this tractor is through another mechanism that is attached to one of the brake pedals and it drops a stop against the control on the pedestal so you can't take the control out of the neutral slot up on the pedestal if the brake is set. Wish my Kubota had that as my grand daughter just mowed a pasture with the brake set on the Kubota. Ha! Fortunately she is small and couldn't get the brake pedal down too far. She set it to open a gate and didn't release it. I went to check on her after she had mowed an acre or so and found the brake pedal still locked down. Ouch! So thanks for you help, sooner or later I am sure someone who is familiar with this tractor will chime in.


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## film495 (Nov 1, 2013)

you need an expert or a parts manual for sure. someone who owns that machine should be able to send you a few pics of what it looks like all put together - possibly you can locate a parts diagram via internet digging.


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## jhngardner367 (Apr 5, 2011)

The problem is, JD considers all info on their equipment as "proprietary",and unless you PAY for it,you're SOL.
They've even gone so far,as to tell owners of farm equipment that they don't actually OWN their machines,...they're considered as being "leased".
If you want to work on your own equipment,you have to PAY them to get the authorization !


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## mfinder (Jul 14, 2015)

Yeah John Deere has some manuals you can view as a PDF, but as near as I can tell nothing goes that far back on their web site. So I would have to the manual and frankly I don't care that much. Ha! It was just something that didn't make sense to me, I can't see a reason for this arm and the tractor runs and operates fine with out it so I guess I will just let it go and at some point maybe I will have the opportunity to crawl under another one and see how it is hooked up. 
So thanks for the help and encouragement.


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