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Starting in netural on 1025R

7K views 35 replies 25 participants last post by  Mike21 
#1 ·
I've been trying to understand why Deere makes an issue out of starting the tractor in neutral on hi and low. Most all the other hydrostatic mowers and the like never had this lockout. Defintely can see reasoning on stick shifts even though historically some tractors didn't have this. The tractor itself is in neutral without any pedals pushed. My 4400 stick shift will start in final gear. But not without reverser being in neutral which is understandable...I know they are thinking safety but is this overkill. No puns intended.
 
#2 ·
If the pedals are out of adjustment it will move. Lots of posts here about tractor creep without touching the pedals.

Not a big deal. After 15 or so years with these tractors I automatically put it in neutral before shutting down without even thinking about it.
 
#3 ·
Odd. Most other hydrostatic tractors Ive run have had the same thing, unless it was bypassed.
Every zero turn Ive ever seen has to also be in neutral too (control levers out to the sides).
They, all manufacturers, want to be sure that an operator is present and in control when its started. They REALLY dont want any liability from someone starting a tractor "in gear" and having it start rolling one way or another causing an injury or death, and the way they do that is neutral starts.
As someone else mentioned, they all will tend to creep at some point, and they cant if they are in neutral.

Im actually surprised they dont require the brake to be on.
Given what weve seen here with peoples tractors rolling away from them, that might be a good idea for some.

Think of it this way.
Lowest common denominator. Weakest link. Etc.
They plan for the worst.
For those of use that maintain our equipment and make sure there are no out of adjustment issues, its a non-issue, and we could all get by forever with no safetys and have no issues.
For those that abuse their stuff and dont know much about how they really work, its probably saved them and they dont even know it.
 
#36 ·
Odd. Most other hydrostatic tractors Ive run have had the same thing, unless it was bypassed.
Every zero turn Ive ever seen has to also be in neutral too (control levers out to the sides).
They, all manufacturers, want to be sure that an operator is present and in control when its started. They REALLY dont want any liability from someone starting a tractor "in gear" and having it start rolling one way or another causing an injury or death, and the way they do that is neutral starts.
As someone else mentioned, they all will tend to creep at some point, and they cant if they are in neutral.

Im actually surprised they dont require the brake to be on.
Given what weve seen here with peoples tractors rolling away from them, that might be a good idea for some.

Think of it this way.
Lowest common denominator. Weakest link. Etc.
They plan for the worst.
For those of use that maintain our equipment and make sure there are no out of adjustment issues, its a non-issue, and we could all get by forever with no safetys and have no issues.
For those that abuse their stuff and dont know much about how they really work, its probably saved them and they dont even know it.
Most have to have brake locked too. Yes, if you’ve ever started one in gear and it take off on you, you’ll appreciate the feature. As low geared as tractors are, the starter motor with move the machine and if it starts, it will keep rolling. A pipe gate won’t stop a 1206 Farmall. LOL
 
#4 ·
Looking back at older gear tractors - probably one of the most common injuries is from starting a tractor from the ground. That is where the operator presence comes in that Indiana Jim talks of.

I am really guilty of this - but being my tractor needs to be in neutral to start gives some protection....
 
#5 ·
I have a friend who is lucky to be alive. He always leaves his backhoe in neutral when he leaves work at night. One night however someone came in after hours and used his backhoe leaving it in gear. Buddy came into work in the morning and went to start his hoe from the ground as he usually did. The hoe started in forward gear and the back tire ran over him before he could get out of the way. It happened in the fall and the ground was fairly soft, and it had a little give to it otherwise this story would have a very diffrent ending. He was just very sore and bruised for a long time. Those safety switches are there for those times, and those people who take things for granted and crap happens. I'll bet Buddy wishes his hoe had a neutral switch.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Starting something in neutral or park IMHO, is the way everything should be! Unless you are in the operators seat it shouldn't start either! Another little safety deal is the brake pedal, as on my X390! Tractor will not start unless the pedal is fully depressed!:good2: I know there is overkill to a very minimal point, but most safety features are a good thing for our well-being!:good2:
 
#7 ·
i have 4 tractors made between 1980 and 2015, two of them hydrostatic and two of them gear transmissions, every one of them was made with a neutral safety switch (3 still functional).
 
#8 ·
My e-hydro 3039R will start with the range selector in gear and without anyone in the seat.
 
#25 ·
I can’t remember if it was the service manual or some other document, but it said the reason this is allowed on the ehydros is because they have a transmission controller that won’t put power to the drive solenoids until the operator is in the seat.
The all mechanical nature of most HST tractors prevent anything like that
 
#9 ·
There was a time when a reasonable portion of the population was either raised on a farm or like in my case, spent their summers and holidays on my grandparents farm. This means these people were exposed to equipment at a young age and likely grew up having already driven a manual transmission vehicle by time you were 12 years old (or even much sooner). You had driven tractors, knew enough to stay away from spinning PTO shafts and the that revolving blades are dangerous, kill people and throw things.

Just as there was a time when virtually everyone knew how to properly put a saddle and harness on horses to either pull a carriage, a wagon or ride it as a means of transportation, today, I bet less than 2% of the general public could do the same. What was once a basic skill, is no longer. Soon, equipment operation will be much the same way. Its the direction we are headed and some even call it progress.

Fast forward to a society where people are walking in front of moving vehicles, they fall in open holes, they crash head on into innocent people from having crossed the center lines of roads. Much of this happens because of their use of so called "smart devices" to which they are so emotionally tethered to their electronic devices, they don't dare not check to see what the latest tweet from a twit is sharing with the world.

Common sense is no longer common, peoples experience around equipment is woefully inadequate and its rapidly getting worse. Why do manufacturers have to focus on making machines as safe as possible? Since most likely never have been shown and trusted to operate something correctly, the manufacturer must make machines with levels of safety protections to protect those who never were shown and allowed to properly and safely operate equipment.

There is a new trend that I see among many young people, which absolutely stuns me,. When I was growing up, you took Driver Education when you were 15 years old. In fact, 47% of all 16 year olds had their drivers license in 1983. In 2014, that percentage is now down to 24%.

The large scale result is you have people less and less qualified to operate machinery. Now, add in the autonomous driving vehicle technology and you have people who no longer feel THEY are responsible for the vehicles operation, because the "technology is supposed to safely operate the vehicle." The recent severe crash involving a Tesla found the owner / driver of the car was "eating breakfast" and had trusted the car would "drive itself". Well, it did drive itself, right into the back of a stopped semi truck..............

And so it goes..................Expect more machinery to have more and more safety equipment because the reality is machinery operators are less skilled, less experienced and less willing to accept personal responsibility for their own actions as time passes. With the proliferation of "1-800-Sue-Them" personal enrichment lawyers (excuse me, personal injury attorneys) this will only further escalate the liability issues and expand the use of safety devices on machinery to protect people from themselves.

Think about it, 50 years from now, people won't be driving cars and trucks. They will merely be passengers in their own vehicles. The skills of machinery operation will decline rapidly among the general public and it will make operating such things as tractors and mowers even less common among the population. It will reach a point where those who purchase equipment will likely have to undergo one on one instructions to operate the equipment. Or they will run it with the smart phone while sitting in the house.
 
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#10 · (Edited)
my 955 starts in any range off the seat..kinda handy.

Enjoy the ride now as the new ones got no seat.


I wonder how you move them in the shop for maintenance........? I guess you could hang a saddle on one.

No rops to smash your garage door.

 
#11 ·
I can sort of see what the OP is getting at. Neutral can be a bit of a misnomer with a hydrostatic tractor. With most SCUT/CUT hydrostatic tractors neutral disengages the transaxle from the hydrostatic drive. But why is this required to start the engine? Isn't it also in "neutral" with both pedals at rest? On almost every hydrostatic lawn, garden and ZTR ever made there is no range select lever to put in neutral. "Neutral" is with both pedals at rest (or handles in the park position on a ZTR). You cannot disengage the transaxle from the hydro drive (I'm not counting bypass levers as those aren't part of any starting sequence). Instead, on those machines you are typically required to push the brake pedal prior to starting.

So why doesn't the 1-series and other hydrostatic tractors simply require the operator to press the brake pedal prior to starting?
 
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#13 ·
You brought up a good point. Something I never thought about. Starting the engine on a 1-series should be no different than starting a X300, X500, X700, Z735M, etc.
 
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#14 ·
Right on jgrayman, all those billions of stick shift auto from the past 100 years....one should have had to get in car...put it in neutral....push clutch in and push brake in and then start....I see absolutely nothing that the neutral thing does....maybe there should be switch on the brake petal...kinda like zero turns....if anything when you're starting the tractor on a step hill and you forget then shift into neutral you are going to roll off....I think this is why many older tractor manufacturers didn't have you shifting into neutral....the 1025r already has the seat switch....
 
#15 ·
The must-start-in-neutral "safety" switch almost resulted in a potential disaster on my first day with the tractor.

I stopped nose down on ~15* slope, throttle to idle and shut the tractor off, still in 4WD and in gear, set the parking brake, made sure it didn't want to roll forward, and dismounted the tractor.

After I did what I got off of the tractor to do, I climbed back on, foot on the brake pedal, put it neutral to start, fired it up, released the parking brake and let off the brake pedal expecting the HST to allow me to start slowly down the slope, ...and promptly started to free-wheel down the hill, ...for about 1 foot until my you-know-what puckered up enough to be water tight and my brain told my left foot to jam on the brakes.

You see I forgot to put it back into gear. I won't be doing that again! If I had been much slower to the brake pedal, it could have been a different story altogether!

So, a "safety feature" can have the opposite effect of what it is supposed to keep from happening.


You can try to make things idiot-proof, but the the world keeps coming up with better and better idiots to out-do the best idiot-proofing.
 
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#22 ·
Your not the only one... I leave it in gear , brake on shut it off...Get back on, take it out of gear to start it...and take the brake off before putting it back in gear. :dunno: Yikes
 
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#16 ·
Exactly on with transmission....you are not disconnecting the transmission from the engine...the variable speed vanes is the transmission....but what you are do is disconnecting the final drive between hi and low. Folks be careful about a runaway, especially using a backhoe near a hole or embankment or on a very steep slope. I know the parking brake is the real safety on all these tractor and under cold starting a lot of them can have some creep....by all means I am in no way advocating the unsafe use of tractors...however just because a manufacturer puts some switch or device in place doesn't necessarily make the tractor safe. This should still be a factor of a cool level headed owner/operator.
 
#17 ·
I have no reason for the movement to N to start, except for years climbing on a tractor you shifted to N to start. :dunno: Yes a few didn't require putting transmission in N.

Safety issue guessing is the reason .

A little off subject, 25+ years ago had a 2nd cousin killed because his tractor would Start IN GEAR. He knew this and I've seen him many times put the tractor in N before stopping the engine. A nephew of his , used his tractor , parked the tractor and left it in gear. A few days later Glenn walked over to the tractor , turned the key . it started and ran over him. They found him a few hours later with tractor setting on him.
Yes it was a stick and not a Hyd transmission.
 
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#18 ·
I have no reason for the movement to N to start, except for years climbing on a tractor you shifted to N to start. :dunno: Yes a few didn't require putting transmission in N.

Safety issue guessing is the reason .

A little off subject, 25+ years ago had a 2nd cousin killed because his tractor would Start IN GEAR. He knew this and I've seen him many times put the tractor in N before stopping the engine. A nephew of his , used his tractor , parked the tractor and left it in gear. A few days later Glenn walked over to the tractor , turned the key . it started and ran over him. They found him a few hours later with tractor setting on him.
Yes it was a stick and not a Hyd transmission.
The old Ford N-series (2N, 9N, 8N) were famous for this. The early models didn't have running boards (9N) and were a bit of a chore to get on/off. As a result it was quite common for folks to stand beside them to start the engine. While they did have a neutral switch linked to the starter button, they had a tendency to not work reliably once the shift linkage got some wear on it. Also, lots of owners would re-wire the ignition so the starter switch no longer had an interlock. This means that they WOULD start in gear.

The problem was you had this short wheelbase tractor with big 28-inch rear tires and when standing beside it to start you were right in front of that big rear tire. The gearing was low enough and the starter strong enough that if you accidentally had it in 1st gear the tractor could actually start and immediately start moving forward. The first thing to make contact was usually your right foot and once your foot was under the tire the rest of your body was soon to follow.
 
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#20 ·
I actually like the neutral start on my 1025r as I use it as another safeguard to keep my young girls from starting the tractor. My girls like to sit on my tractor when it’s parked in the garage and do what every kid does and pretend to drive it and operate it. The key is hidden from them in a high spot they shouldn’t be able to reach, but I’m not foolish enough to think that given the opportunity that they wouldn’t try to retrieve it once they find where it is. So in the unlikely event they got the key, they wouldn’t be able to get the tractor started because I purposely leave it in gear. I know it’s only a matter of time before they are old enough to figure that out as well but by that time I expect to have fully taught them safe operation, under supervision.


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#21 ·
My Kubota Bx that I traded in could start in gear, I think. I know you could leave it running and leave it in gear, drop the end loader and get off it. If you bumped the HST pedal even a little bit, it would die. Seems safer to me than putting it in neutral and setting the parking brake, or maybe not setting the parking brake and have it roll away.

My son, not sure how old he was, maybe 12 years old, was screwing around with my tractor after school one day before I was home, so yes, they will do what kids do. The only reason I new it was he broke a tail light and I saw a little piece of it laying on the ground.
 
#23 ·
Tks for respond to this post....good insight...I want to make it perfectly clear that in no way would I recommend or encourage changing any safety devices. I do however believe that ultimately one is responsible for one's on safety and any of these tractors can be used in an inexperienced way and without safety concerns. The fact that the manufactures adds the lockout or shield or switch does not eliminate person safety and not a lot of assurance alone can be put on this arrangement. Much like air bags in cars permits owners to drive an excessive rates of speed. I do believe with Sulleybear that a good portion of society young and old thinks someone else is looking out for their safety and is almost demanding this. I am sure any manufacturer is glad to add this as all this always increases the overall cost. Anway again ths from Chuck in Ky.
 
#26 ·
Don't think Deere has an issue with it, but the liability ambulance chasing lawyers and also operators who do stupid things do cause the issue.
They have to cover their rear end to protect themselves from the dumbest of the dumb who may climb into the seat and "operate" with zero skills. imo

Just read recently of a woman who was releasing a turtle to a river but she forgot to put the car in park or have the brake engaged.
While at the river, the car rolled down the hill and submerged into the river.
Just imagine the lawyers who would jump all over this if she happened to have been injured or killed as a result of her neglect and operation error..
We can't protect the dumb and stupid.. no matter how hard they try to legislate such protection.
 
#27 ·
Don't think Deere has an issue with it, but the liability ambulance chasing lawyers and also operators who do stupid things do cause the issue.
They have to cover their rear end to protect themselves from the dumbest of the dumb who may climb into the seat and "operate" with zero skills. imo
Yes, but there are probably 50X (or more) as many hydrostatic lawn and garden tractors that CAN'T be put in neutral and are started "in gear" so to speak. :)
 
#28 ·
I wrestled with the idea of disabling the neutral safety, especially when I jump off and leave it in gear accidentally. What secured the deal was my daughter was sitting on the tractor and was playing with the FEL joystick (pressure relieved already). Didn't catch my attention until she cranked the tractor up in a split second. From that moment on I left it enabled.

By default, I'm drive a manual transmission car and always leave it in gear when I park. By habit I put the tractor in neutral, turn it off and then put it right back into Low to hold the gear. In retrospect being HST I don't think it operates the same way :)

Either way I conditioned myself to to put it in neutral before dismounting or starting.
 
#33 ·
The neutral switch is really there for climbing off a running tractor. For starting, it’s redundant with the seat switch. My guess is that it‘s easier just to keep them both in the circuit. It’s a poor design. If the tractor knows that you are not in the seat and senses the neutral position to keep it running, it should also be able to allow starting using the seat switch alone.

I went out to plow yesterday and the key was dead with the stick in neutral. I bounced up and down on the seat. Still dead. After wiggling the speed select stick in neutral, it started. If that switch permanently fails on a cold snowy morning, I won’t be a happy camper. Any suggestions on PM to prevent that?
 
#35 · (Edited)
When I bought my JD 855 in 1990 the mechanic at the shop reminded me to be sure I didn't miss the zerk for the park brake linkage when greasing the machine. He said a problem he saw often was the linkage frozen up because it was so rarely used. It would start with the range selector in gear and even run with nobody in the seat, in gear and no park brake. I never really gave it much thought, although common sense would say that I should have thought it over each time I started the machine while standing beside it.

My ten year old X754 does not have a range selector but requires the brake pedal to be all the way down to start. My 2025R requires the the selector to be in neutral but not the brake. It seems to me that using a switch on the brake and not the shifter would be better but I see the wisdom in having at least one safety requirement, if not for me then for others I care about whose common sense might be more in tune with things that would baffle me.

Although I rarely disagree with @SulleyBear on anything he shares, I do not completely share in the notion that common sense is no longer common. Requiring some sort of built in assurance that safety has the best chance of playing a role in the operation of these machines seems to me to be common sense in itself. Setting the brake or shifting to neutral is almost rote after the first few times just as it is in pretty much every automobile still on the road today. Even my first car, a 1955 Chevy with a Powerglide, had a park/neutral safety switch. I don't recall, but it is likely my dad thought that was unnecessary and just added on there for foolish kids like me.

Without getting too far off topic here I have an interesting story about an old tractor. I think it was even a big John Deere. When my sister and I got home from school one day we decided to drive the thing. The eight year old me did not understand it at the time but the tractor had a locking clutch pedal so the PTO could operate independently. We were trying to get the tractor to move but could not figure out how to release the clutch. With my sister in the seat kicking at the pedal I got underneath and fiddled around with whatever I could reach and it popped free causing the tractor to lurch forward. The big back tire left bruises and a good imprint on my rib cage but luckily for us it died instead of running over me completely. I was quite sore for a while and thinking back I am pretty sure I may have had a busted rib or two. Of course I couldn't tell my folks about it so I just carried on. I still to this day think about that, and even remind my sis from time to time about how she almost killed me. That was a severe lack of common sense but a lesson that taught a great deal of it. No safety devices could have kept me from that little screw up.

Edit: I just noticed this is an old discussion, but it is always timely. Besides, I am in the camp of thinking that continuing an old thread is better than starting a new one on the same topic. Sorry if it bugs anyone.
 
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