John Deere 4200 Range Shifter Broken

Oct 8, 2019 repair

The John Deere 4200, 4300 and 4400 tractors have a range shifter that lets you select A, B, C or Neutral range for the tractor. They are also bad about breaking if not kept lubed.

Mine was broken when I got it, and when I cleaned all the crap off I found that someone had stuck a carrige bolt, bushing and some washers in the hole to keep it from leaking.

The tractor was just stuck in whatever gear it was in. Here are a couple of pictures of the cleaned-up outside of the transmission housing and the broken lever (both pictures are after removing both the wheel and fender):

Somebody also made up a hangar so the loose end would not flop all around:

Remove Rockshaft Cover

Wash your tractor first. Seriously. I didn’t and had to get out the shop-vac to get all the shit off of it because it was already in the garage with the wheel off. I don’t even know how I’m going to get the wheel back on since it’s full of water and weighs about as much as a buffalo. What a pain.

Wash your tractor first.

Use a Jackstand. Please.

There is a rod that is supposed to be hooked up to the shifter linkage that goes into the housing. To get to it, we need to remove the “Rockshaft” cover. The Rockshaft cover is what the upper arms of the three-point hitch are connected to, and it’s under the seat.

We need to do the following:

1. Remove the left rear tire

   Mine are filled with water or something, so it’s going to be a PITA to get back on

2. Remove the left and right rear fender

   Left fender no problem. The right fender is a bitch to get off. The middle bolt holding it to the operator platform is right above the hydro reverse pedal and is nearly impossible to get off. I had to remove the reverse hyrdo pedal bolt and slide it off the mount. Then, I could only turn the bolt like 1/8 of a turn at a time to get it off - what a pain.

3. Remove the seat and seat mounts

   1" wrench did the trick

4. Remove the knockout plates on either side of the driver - requires taking the PTO/SCV/3-point-hitch depth adjuster knobs off

   To remove these knobs, I took 2 pieces of wood and chiseled a slot out of one, clamped them together around the rod and hammered from below to knock off the lever’s handle (this was on the not-round knobs that didn’t screw off):

   

5. Unhook the wiring harness that goes across the back of the tractor

   Take a picture so you remember how it was hooked up

6. Remove 3 hydraulic fittings that go over the seat

   I had to remove the SCV valve for this, and if you do that the technical manual says to replace 2 o-rings on the bottom of the SCV valve. There were no o-rings on mine but I’m going to add a couple when I put it back together.

7. Unhook the 3 point lift-arms and remove the top bar

8. Remove 12 bolts and pry off the rockshaft cover

   It’s heavy, but fairly easy once you get all the bolts out

Disassembly Pictures

This is after removing the seat, there is a switch on the seat bracket, 2 bolts on the back and 2 nuts on the front:

Here are the bolts + nuts:

Here are the fittings, kick plate and wiring harness locations:

Removing the Shaft

Now that it’s apart, the shaft can be removed. Here it is with the fork attached (the 3 threaded holes and 2 other round holes at the top of this picture are where the SVC mounts):

There is a spring clip that holds the shaft to the fork, and that is easily removed with a center punch.

Be careful that you have a way to get the spring clip after it falls so it does not drop into the fluid. My hands are too big to fit down into the space, so I had to figure something else out so I didn’t have to fish the spring pin out of all that shit.

I used an old sock wrapped around the shaft to catch the pin that came out, and a magnetic picker-upper to get the pin off the sock.

Then, you can pull the shaft out through the hole on the outside of the case. The shift fork will fall off, make sure you have a way to hold it while you pull the shaft out.

Replacing the Shaft

I got the new shaft, lever, o-ring and gasket sealant (you can see the old shaft at the top):

Assembly is pretty simple, put o-ring on the rod, slide it in and put the shift fork on it. The shift fork (part 15 in the diagram from John Deere) goes on the rod at the far side of the case from where the rod slides in.

Then you have to sort of pull the shift fork towards the left hand side of the case until it seats on the dowel that sticks out of the shifter (part 12 in the diagram).

I did not drain my hydraulic fluid when I was putting this thing in, so I put gloves on and stuck my hands down in the fluid and could feel the dowel where the fork goes. Once the fork is in the right place, line up the holes for the spring pin and carefully hammner it in so the shift fork is attached to the rod (parts 15, 16 and 18). This is tricky, I found a rubber mallet helpful to gently hammer the rod into the shift fork to line up the holes (while holding the shift fork in the correct place over the shifter).

Then, to check that it’s in the right place, I inserted a drift/punch into the hole where the new lever attaches (through the hole that spring pin #47 in the diagram goes to) and had enough leverage to turn the shaft and “shift” to make sure my shift forks were installed properly.

So, step by step:

1. Put the o-ring on the shaft
2. Slide the shaft into the hole from the outside, push it most of the way in
3. Put the shift fork on the shaft inside the transmission, slide it over to the shifter, making sure the forks are over the dowel it shifter
4. Get it all lined up and hammer in the spring pin for the fork
5. Test the shifter (put a punch or screwdriver through the hole that the lever goes on and “shift” to make sure it works)

After that, clean up the surfaces where your SCV (if you removed it) and Rock Shaft Cover go back on, put a bead of sealant on the surface and re-attach everything. After that, I carefully adjusted my linkage on the shift lever so that it hits the stop when all the way forward (as opposed to torquing the lever and breaking it again)