No way could I hold it back from moving in 5th or 6 gear. Has plenty of torque so I guess adjusting that wouldnt cure it either..... A friend of mine has a Ariens 5524. We tested blowers together with our speed selector nose to nose......we are right on until I go in 6th...and then his pulls ahead quickly. My 6th did match his 5th gear. Has me stumped. Are there any calibrations limits to the disc that would tell me once it wore so many thousands it needed replaced? Or what is a good indicator it needs replaced? Couldnt find anything like that in the manual except for watching for rubber shavings inside the bottom pan. Appreciate your help

And double "SHHHHHHHHHHHH" on this image!! I think you will find a broken, chipped or badly worn tooth on one of the gears that I have indicated with green stripes. What causes the "clicking" is that when the gears rotate under a load (they are always in mesh but only "loaded" when the shift key is engaged to a specific gear) and the damaged gear tooth arrives at the point of "mesh", there is a momentary jump or lurch as the driving member of the pair accelerates when tooth contact is lost. Almost as soon as it loses contact, contact is made again on the next "good" tooth and because the driving gear is now slightly faster (but just for a split second) than the driven gear, the actual contact is like a hammer strike on the driven gear tooth. If this is not corrected, the repeated impacts of tooth on tooth will "shell off" more teeth (especially if heavily loaded). Your options are to disassemble and repair (replacing defective and worn parts), OR try to find a "good used" transaxle assembly, OR just "DON'T USE 3rd GEAR". If you choose the option of "DON'T USE 3rd GEAR", you should at least drain the oil and try to flush out any broken teeth or shards of metal that may have resulted from tooth breakage. Good idea to "fish around" in the bottom of case with a small, flexible magnet. If you have a big, strong magnet....you can place it up against the bottom of the aluminum case (on the exterior surface) and repeatedly drag it toward the open drain plug hole. Start at the point farthest from the drain and drag toward the drain hole. Drag slowly and you can "tickle and coax" small pieces of ferrous material to the open hole. If you could be lucky enough to buy a replacement drain plug that has a magnet in it, that would be good too. Best of luck to you.

Where was the the blue smoke coming from? the engine, under the deck, or the rearend? The transmission (rearend) is probably a splicer. The one I got is a sealed unit. so servicing not going to be easy plus if it leaked out you will have the leak to deal with also. I would download a manual from sears to find out what oil (or grease)goes in the the transmission. usually tht model of transmission is gears connected with a chain inside the two half housing. The drive belt from the engine to the transmission can or starts to slip, smoke, streching, and causing clutch release problems which will in turn cause shifting dificulity cause the pulling connected to the rear end is still turning. I would make sure the drive belt has good tension and not burnt up with the clutch released before I would attempt to regrease the transmission, plus it the transmission leaked all the grease out there should be evidents of this under the rearend???

Took it to a dealer, he changed the part for me. (Helps having the special tools) The part(s) came to $27 at one dealer, and $22 at another. So I don't feel like I got taken. One question, Should I put grease on the starter gear where it runs into the ring gear. When I took the old one off, It appeared there was grease on there, but I can't be sure. Grease makes sense to me, but the directions made no mention of it, and I don't want to get any on the Bendix (I'm afraid it might get stuck again)