Chatter Noise Cub Cadet 1046

[MrCritical]

Bought this tractor early April. Cuts grass like a dream. Have very steep hills to mow, borderline insane. Hydrostatic transmission. Not used for commercial mowing.

Saturday the temp read 99F. Don't know what the heat index was. I was mowing the hills, been mowing about an hour.

I went to go up a hill with the mower disengaged at full throttle. There was a loud chatter sound and the mower quit pulling. I had to let off the gas and use partial throttle to make it up the hill. It did this one more time.

What's going on? Time to call the dealer?

I specifically told them what the mower was going to be used for before I purchased it.

 

[Maritime Storm]

Is the noise only noticeable at full throttle on a hill? Is it coming from the engine or transaxle? If it's the motor, is the hill steep enough that the engine is oil starving?

 

[MrCritical]

Only heard the noise on a hill, only when it was mowing a lot of hills in very hot weather. My guess it was the transaxle. No sign of engine miss. When I let off the gas and went up the hill about quarter throttle it quit the noise and pulled fine. Did it one more time, same thing let off and pull up hill slowly and it pulled fine and noise went away. It only made the noise going up the hills, not down.

Some of the hills are really steep, and I'm not looking forward to going up less than full throttle. Engine oil level is at the full level.

 

[JTK]

It's not uncommon to have 'propulsion' issues with the 1000 series hydrostatic transaxles. Typcially it's caused by too weak a spring on the tensioner for the hydrostatic drive belt. Belt slippage will occur while pulling hills in hot temperatures. Slowing the engine RPMs prolly got the belt to grip again, but running at max governed engine RPMs is needed for these hydrostatic drives for cooling and proper 'pumpage'.

Joel