GX325 PTO clutch anti-rotation pin/brace?⁰

[Baby Grand]

Long story short:
Anybody know the part # or have a photo/drawing that shows the PTO clutch anti-rotation pin/bracket/brace for a GX325?

Long story long:
Last time I was down at my sister's place she said she thought there was something wrong with the engine. I started it up and it was makin' a really awful metallic noise. Scenarios of severe internal damage danced in my head. With the engine off and the plugs removed it would make a clunk or two when I rotated the flywheel by hand a full turn. After diddling with the thing for an hour in the horse barn, I couldn't see anything the matter with it and decided to remove the mower deck to simplify removing the engine to take back to my place where I'm better tooled to tear it down. With the deck off, my sister wanted to use the tractor with a trailer to muck the stalls before I started taking the engine off, so she started the tractor and the racket had stopped. It would ocaisionally "dink", but wasn't making the nickels and quarters in a coffee can anymore. After some snooping around I discovered that the clutch housing had about 120 degrees of freeplay before one of the bolt tabs on the housing flange hit something on the frame. It was also pulling the clutch wires almost tight right before it "dinked". So off to the internets to find the missing part I needed to fix it. Deere part diagrams for the drive system and frame showed bupkuss. A call to my dear sister's dealer ensued. Parts guy said "Dai, I dunno. I think it's part of the clutch". Attempts to get him to elaborate were futile. It was Friday afternoon, almost Miller time, so I guess he had his mind on other things. So now you know my sad, sad story. Can someone familiar with the part describe it to me? A part number would be ideal, but a photo or sketch would give me an idea what kind of bar or rectangular stock I'll need to bring with a torch and tongs to fabricate something or if it's a bolt, which coffee cans to bring.
Thanks for any help in advance,
Jim

 

[beenthere]

Schematic of the clutch, and part #
Remove the bolt (self locking screw key #27), drop the clutch, and inspect it.
Metric sockets needed, likely a 13mm, maybe 14mm

 

[Baby Grand]

Beenthere,

Thanks for helping!
Unfortunately, the document shown gives no clue to what the anti-rotation feature is that I need to replace.

Allow me to restate the pickle I'm in:
The clutch engages and disengages as it should and transmits gobs of torque without slipping under load.
In the tractors present condition, in both the PTO clutch energized/engaged and off/disengaged states, the housing (the part of the clutch that's not supposed to rotate) can be turned through an angle of about 120 degrees at which point its free rotation is stopped by a metal part that's bolted to the chassis, making a metallic "dink" noise.
When it does this, the clutch wires are pulled almost tight.

In time this will fatigue the wires and then I'll have an additional problem to sort out.
The clutch, by design, is not supposed to touch that metal part, which it finds so irresistible.
Ya gotta keep 'em seppa-ray-ded!
It should be prevented from this lurid spinning by a part that is now missing from my sisters tractor - probably in the field or lawn, somewhere.

I can find no mention of this missing part, without which the PTO clutch will have a very short service life, in the Deere parts breakdown.
In lieu of having a proper handle for it, I have dubbed this part "The PTO Clutch Anti-Rotation-Thingy".
Anti-Rotation-Thingy is my ARTful placeholder for whatever name it is called, be it pin, bracket, brace, bolt, retainer, limit stop, etc.
Once I know what it's called, or what it looks like, or what its P/N is, then I can call it by its name and either buy one or make one "to fit".
Remember: A puppy isn't really yours until you change its name.
I just made that up - not sure if it's true, but if it is, by gum, I want residuals.

In my quest to determine the identity of this part I have come across several different retention methods.
Here are some PTO clutches, from various lawn tractors, with their "Thingies" proudly exposed:





I have also seen another style that is a long, shouldered stud, secured to one of slots in the housing with a nut.
It extends up a few inches and goes into a hole in the underside of the frame. Eh, sounds a bit racy, no?



Whoa. How'd that get in there?

Part number? Picture? Bueller? Anyone?

Again, thanks for taking the time to read & respond!

 

[beenthere]

When you drop the clutch and inspect it, I think you will see what it is that is missing or has failed. From what I read, you have not dropped the clutch yet.

 

[Baby Grand]

The fix did not involve dropping the clutch.
Dropping the clutch would have done nothing to fix the problem.
It would have made a very simple repair much more complicated and time consuming.
The anti-rotation pin, which is part of the chassis, was not correctly engaged with the clutch.
Looks like someone failed to engage the clutch with the pin when it was last serviced.

 

[Oh Lordy HepMe HepME]

This just happened to a freinds John Deere GT235.

The PTO position pin/stud is simply here to keep PTO from turning. It wears due to PTO vibration & movement.
First problem is they just weld it on the bottom of John Deere frames. Not only is this a bad Deere design, to make matters worse they just used chit metal to boot!

But' if your really lucky youll have enough stud left to weld a small dia coupling on it with a very high grade steel bolt/stud down in it? Well it works...lol
No welder, maybe put new threads on old stud & screw a small iron coupling with a high grade steel bolt/stud in it may fix it?

By screwing a high grade bolt into a coupling & cutting its head off you can screw it out later on with vice grips if it needs changed?
Because there are no John Deere parts you can buy to fix this inevitable failure like it should have been designed. Its such an ignorant idea how JD done it!
Of course one can always lift their engine out to drop an extra long bolt through their frame where this stud is located if they so desire? Yep!

I say use a "High Grade Bolt/stud" for this fix because JD clearly didnt understand its need here and I like to learn from other peoples mistakes.