mjbrickner

Toro Personal Pace Won't Self-Propel

Very quickly the drive quit working on my Toro Personal Pace mower - model 20023. Starting making some noise that actullay sounded like something was loose, but I checked and couldn't find anything. Belt looks OK, cable is working as it should - tightining the belt when activated, pully on top of gearbox is turning. I pulled both rear wheels and the gears look good. Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

cheese

Are the axles turning behind the wheels? If not, and the pulley is turning, then it sounds like the tranny went bad.

mattison

Mine did the same thing. What's involved in the repair and is it worth it?

mjbrickner

Gears Worn

Took the transmission out and got it apart. The bevel and spur gears are shot. Order new on line for $34 with shipping. Anyone have an idea what causes them to wear prematurely (at least, that is my opinion)?

cheese

Lack of proper lube from the mfgr. maybe? Excessive belt tension? Does the input shaft have a lot of play/slop?

mjbrickner

No Slop

No slop anywhere. Every thing else looks good. There was a lot of grease in the tranny. Maybe mis-adjusted cable ?

cheese

Who knows. If it was too much belt tension, the input shaft would be loose fitting.

mattison

Tore mine apart yesterday. Tranny was fine. The 2 cogs for the wheels were worn dowm. $10 bucks for both and it's back to working.

Thanks guys.

cheese

That's good news Mattison. (better than having a bad tranny) Glad you got it fixed!

fretful1953

Newbie

Hi everyone. New to this forum but need help finding parts for my 22" Toro Personal Pace mower. Model # 20017. The self propelled cable broke and I can' t find a supplier that carries this. Mower runs great but the self-propel doesn't work.

Thanks for any info you can give me.

mattison

Have you tried Toro's site?

Toro - Lawn Mowers, Zero Turn Mowers, Tractors, Snow Blowers

Under customer care just click on parts.

Tromos

So I had the same issue a couple years ago with my Toro as well. After messing around for a while, I also took the gearbox apart and found that the gears had worn down and needed to be replaced. I think I spent $30 or so on replacement parts.

The root cause seemed to be that, despite the box being filled with grease, none of it was in the gears! Over time (6-7 years), the grease had all worked itself to the edges of the gearbox. I have been pretty religious about cleaning my lawnmower after every use with my garden hose so that the deck does not rust and the blade is not impeded by grass sludge. In the end, though, water from those cleanings mixed with the grease in the gearbox and caused the grease to set like Jell-o. So all the grease is around the edges of the gearbox and none is between the gears and the grease is fairly stiff. Not good for gears. Yesterday, I opened the gearbox again when prepping the mower for another year. I found the grease was still good, but had again migrated to the edges of the gearbox.

Personally, I would recommend disassembling the gearbox at least every other year, cleaning it out, inspecting the status of the gears, and reassembling, making sure to get the grease mixed into the gears again. This is especially true if you regularly clean the underside of your mower deck with water.