Matt, you are right, Dave and I are good friends.
Like he said, he'll be staying with us while he attends the Ag Fair. In fact, so will Brian later in the week.
You guys who gave advice to turn the splines are right on the money.
Instead of turning the PTO, the other day, I was turning the crankshaft with a large socket on it. I had the decompression active so it was easy to turn. I rotated back and forth, but that was not the problem. The problem was that I didn't have the 2 halves square and parallel to each other. That's when I quit.
But I went out the next day and started over again with Loretta helping.
We split the 2 halves apart to get measurements of when engagement occurs. I also loosened the clutch pack and reset the clutch(es) with my home made "clutch alignment tool", but it was set correctly the first time already.
Then I measured both halves and determined the following.
This was so that we would now what the hold up was. My calcs told me that the PTO clutch splines touch first when the bell housing flanges are apart approx 1.650". The main clutch splines touch at approx 1.300", and finally, the pilot bearing touches at approx 1/2". Seems to me that should be the first to engage, but it's the last.
Anyway, after we got the 2 halves line up again, we tried pushing them together.
Guess what? With a little rotating of the crank while pushing together, the darn thing went together!
Hurrah!!
I used the bolts to suck in the last .300", so I knew the pilot had seated already, and everything was already lined up.
Anyway, here are some photos of the tractor back together again.
It looks pretty sweet all cleaned up and painted.
