Patent ID: 7354369

Claim:
A working vehicle comprising an HMT made up by the combination of an HST and a planetary gear unit, and a forward/rearward travel direction changing unit for changing the rotational direction of output of said HMT, said HMT and said forward/rearward travel direction changing unit being arranged in tandem in a power transmission path extending from a driving source to driving wheels, wherein said HST includes a hydraulic pump unit and a hydraulic motor unit, at least one of which being designated as being of a variable displacement type, a pump shaft being operatively connected with said driving source for driving said hydraulic pump unit and a motor shaft being driven by said hydraulic motor unit, wherein an HST variable output in both forward and reverse directions is outputted via said motor shaft; said HMT is designed to be held in a substantially output shutdown mode during said HST variable output is at a maximum level in either forward or reverse direction, and switched from said substantially output shutdown mode to a maximum output mode as said HST variable output is changed from said maximum output level in said either forward or reverse direction to a maximum output level in the opposite direction; and said forward/rearward travel direction changing unit is interposed between said driving source and said HMT with respect to a power transmission direction, and designed to be switched into a forward travel mode enabling transmission of drive power from said driving source to said pump shaft with the rotational direction of said drive power maintained in a forward direction, a rearward travel mode enabling drive power from said driving source to said pump shaft with the rotational direction of said drive power changed to a reverse direction, and a neutral mode shutting off a power transmission path from said driving source to said pump shaft.