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I'm really surprised it came free, it was stuck tight, seized up as one piece. It's of those things you just have to be persistent and patient with while working on it, no penetrating oil was going to touch this one, heat and some impact/vibration with the hammer on the pinion rod was the only thing that was going to break the bond. So I kept at it, and yesterday it finally gave up. My biggest problem was getting a bite on that rod, figuring heating up the sleeve/fork was the best thing as heating the rod exposed out of the sleeve would serve no purpose. Just like a seized bolt, but much easier to get the heat where it needs to be, the piles of black carbon that emptied out was interesting, some grease bubbled out, not much though. It's not any wonder of science or as I'm sure there are many people who turn wrenches that deal with things like this every day, just part of the job etc. I'm just slightly elated that I've got a leveling box that works, now that 2 bottom ought to flop over the furroughs and I can finally level up the brush hog. I have an idea of what happened, I think this tractor was in a riding arena, thus it's worn condition when I bought it from the person who got it from them, grease fitting was missing, threads still there, I put a new one on, but it would not seat fully, so I just snugged it up for now. It never got greased and seized up, a .10 cent part and some grease would have easily avoided the problem. On another piece of equipment I have, same thing, no one greased a fitting on a big ole clutch assembly pilot bearing, just a few shots every so often is all you need, bearing failed and wallowed out the hole in the driven plate, finally the woven material drive links took the abuse for too long and they let loose. Just a couple shots of grease really makes a difference on some things, yet people don't do it.
I did see just that pinion rod available, and I believe the fork is available too, after seeing many complete after market assemblies.
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