A lot of good suggestions , No, no sherman tranny but on the speed thing the hand lever mechanism is gummed up with rust and I think would be impossible to adjust tension so that the lever is supposed to return to idle ,as per the book , that leaves the govenor to control revs under load , not happening , all revs are controlled by the hand lever ?, Someone mentioned alingment of the PTO drive shaft, I accidentally parted the two halves/sections of the drive shaft and mated them together , Is it possible they could mate in more than one position ?, and so be out of balance , Yes , this tractor is new to me and i'm learning fast while the work piles up.The bush hog and the drive shaft has been used on another tractor without any problems/