hydro Issue ? with a 112L

My 1985 112L riding lawn mower recently had an issue with the main drive belt popping off so I bought a new belt as the old one was streched/cracked. To install the belt I pulled to mower about 50' (w/ out the drive belt on) from my soaked yard onto my gravel drive. I then pulled it about 10 more feet onto the drive. Could that have hurt the hydro tranny? The new belt seems to be an exact fit but the mower will not move in forward or reverse. It wants to lerch forward but not enough to get it to roll. I noticed the "manual push lever" is disengaged and while I never really utilized it before cause it never seemed to do anything I recall it at least seeming like it was attached to something unlike now. Could this be the problem? When I push the tranny lever into forward or reverse I can see the main vertical shaft going from the bottom of the tranny into the tranny and it rotated like I imagine it should. Any help would be greatly appreciated.