JimG

Thanks for reply. I was playing around with this. It does seem to snug up a little when tightened down which seems to work. I have driven it for a few hours since doing so and the gears are working without issue. I was also concerned about over tightening. For now, I just snugged it down a bit more then last time. If it occurs again, I will tighten a touch more and then add a drop of thread locker as you suggest. Fingers crossed. Thanks again.

Guys, I have an update on this topic. Everything was working great since December with the installation of new gear fan fix that was put in. Recently however, I started encountering issues with the gear shifting no longer being smooth. Then, I was down by the fire pit unloading some branches and it got stuck in reverse gear. I did some searches and opened up the gasket which houses the gear fan to check what was going on. After doing some troubleshooting, I am able to confirm that I can shift manually. I detached the arm and shift linkage rod from the shift lever. To get out of reverse, I applied the break and then was able to manually shift the lever. That was good news because I was a little worried it might be worse. Gears shift without issue manually. The gear fan itself seems to be intact, also good. The linkage rod seems to be fine. Now for the issue: I believe that when I completed the work in December to get everything back together, I did not fasten the lower shift lever tight enough. I was worried about over tightening. It seems to have backed out, a little, over the past 6 months. Evidence: 1) when I removed the gasket cover as shown in the image below, I reattached the shifting arm (after manually resetting back to neutral gear) and then tried to shift as normal but with the gasket off so I could see how the gear fan was engaging (upper & lower parts). I found that the teeth appeared to be misaligned. It worked for a gear or 2 but then slipped because the teeth (lower and upper) are not matching properly. 2) looking closer, the upper lever is closer to the back part of the gasket housing and then the lower lever (marked as 1 in the image). After noting this I checked if the lower part could be pushed in, and it has just a little play. It is also not quite hand tight as of now. In December it was. Given this, I definitely need to tighten it and I am hoping that will bring the 2 parts back into alignment (upper and lower shift levers). My question for you all is, what should the torque be - For the upper shift lever & most importantly, the lower shift lever (1 in the image)? I checked my manual and also the service manual that I downloaded but have not been able to find what it should be. Do any of you know? Any thoughts are welcome even if you do not know for sure. I'm just trying to find the solution. Please chime in if you have any suggestions. Thank you!

Haha, no, that was a video I found online doing some searches.

Good news! Its fixed! Thanks Greg and others for all the comments. Really appreciate it. No matter what I tried, I was not able to adjust the shift rod to enable it to cycle thru all the gears. I removed the shift rod and opened the gear fan case. The issue turned out to be the fan gears being corroded. The pic shows the corrosion but it is hard to see how bad the teeth were. I was able to get it fixed by replacing the gear fan and then adjusting the shift rod linkage. This is a walkthru for replacing it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABLVRLNHtY Its now shifting better then it did when I first got it.

Thanks Greg for all the notes. I'm going to give this a try and hopefully finish tomorrow. I also got the service manual. Thanks very much. I will post with an update when I finish, and let you all know how it goes. Fingers crossed.

Ok, so I have now tried adjusting the cable. I referenced this link for walk thru on how to adjust the cable, in case anyone else may find this useful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=leiyiv7SWPg First, I put it in what should be high gear - the dash registered nuetral. After rotating cable counter clockwise the sensor activated and brought me back to reverse on dash light. After rotating forward, it again activated the sensor and brought it back to neutral on the dash light. I kept rotating and it never hit the sensor to bring it to high. I started to feel some resistance and did not want to keep going out of fear I would break something. Anyone else encounter this, agree I should hold over turning the cable (meaning only as hard as hand turning it) and not use any tools such as a wrench? I am now thinking it might be the gearshift fan causing the issue and am looking into this. I will post another update as I have more from that investigation.

Thanks Alien10, as yet, I have not checked the idle, by listening, it seems pretty consistent as far as idle but maybe...

Thanks Greg, when in reverse, it does light up reverse on the dash. When in neutral it lights up as reverse on dash. When in high, it lights up as neutral. It seems like it might be going farther forward but I am not positive. Yes, brake is applied when shifting. When I shifted to what should be high gear and it lighted up as neutral, and then, when I applied the gas, it was indeed in neutral and did not move. In reverse, the unit moves in reverse as expected.

Recently, my unit Axis 500 (2020) will only go into reverse and neutral. I am not able to get high or low. The engine itself sounds fine and I do not have other issues on this unit. I change the engine oil but have not yet changed the gear oil. Before this happened I occasionally encountered issue where going from reverse to high gear, it would grind some and i had to reposition to shift into high gear. I also for last couple weeks heard a squeaking sound. I couldn't tell what it was. Was looking for a grease point I missed. The unit has around 70 hours and is kept in the garage. Anyone else encounter this type of scenario? Any suggestions on troubleshooting would be appreciated. Thanks.