I'm dragging up this old thread because, well, it's less than 2 years old
AND IT HAPPENED AGAIN!
The other day I fired up the tractor to take care of the snow. The clutch wouldn't release when I stepped on it to engage the PTO. We'd had a day of rain before temperatures plummeted so I thought maybe the friction disk was frozen to the flywheel or something. I shut the tractor off, engaged the PTO, restarted and blew out the driveway without issue.
Same deal yesterday -- clutch didn't seem to fully disengage when shifting in the PTO. But this time, when I was about 3/4 done, it started to make loud rattling sounds. The noise disappeared when I reduced RPM, so I drove it straight to the garage and shut it down.
I split it today, and this is what I found:
The clutch was all new Kubota brand parts, from a reputable Kubota dealer. Shaft is straight, pilot bushing unworn. What the Aitch-Eee-double-hockey-sticks would cause it to tear itself apart like that???