Revisited

This post is to thank all of those kind folks who offered suggestions for getting my clutch unstuck. I tried them all except splitting the tractor (would have been soon) and drilling a hole in the housing. The clutch stuck in October. I blocked it open in November, checking it after Thanksgiving without satisfactory results. I checked it again before Christmas, and again the end of January. It still wouldn't budge.

I resigned myself to splitting the tractor after the weather gets better, using my labor and the board's knowledge. I needed to grade the driveway really bad due to all ruts that had popped up. I decided to use the tractor anyway, as I have done in the past, by starting it in gear. Habits are hard to break though. I started the tractor in neutral first to warm things up, pushed my foot in on the clutch, and promptly pushed the lever into reverse, forcing it into gear. I was at idle, so it went in with hardly any grind. The tractor lurched as I expected, then stopped suddenly after moving less than 6 inches. All this time, my foot was on the clutch. It simply broke loose! I used the tractor all weekend, blocking the clutch down this time.

So, if there are any skeptics out there about whether leaving the clutch blocked down will work, I just say give it time if you can. It took MONTHS for this one to come lose. Good thing I didn't have any real work for it to do or I may have gotten tired of waiting.

Thanks again to a wonderful forum.

No, I don't recommend using this method to unstick the clutch. My intent in the post was to thank those who helped and to let folks know that blocking it down works both to prevent and to help unstick if it does become stuck. I put the iron weight on the clutch now after each use.