Belt pulley for John Deere L

I recently purchased a JD L and got a belt pulley assembly with it. It was taken off of the tractor by the person who restored it as he was concerned with safety issues during shows and displays. He liked to let the tractor run and he was concerned that some little kid would get caught in the turning pulley as it supposedly is a direct drive (the pulley supposedly turns whenever the engine runs). I've not reinstalled it so I'm going only on what the seller stated. My question is "Is this true? Is this the way Deere designed it?" The install point is behind the clutch plates of the tractor, but I see no controls to engage/disengage the pulley. If this is the case, how does one "set" the tractor to do a belt task? As soon as the belt tightened sufficiently to run the implement, it would run...NOT VERY SAFE! Also, unless you were extremely lucky to get things aligned perfectly, the belt would likely not stay on. Am I missing something here?
 
If the engine turns, the belt pulley turns. It is direct drive off the back of the motor basically. There was a kit on ebay you can buy that has a machined spacer that puts enough distance between the two gears where the pulley will not turn while installed. I have no affiliation with the person who designed and sells those, just passing that along.
 
I made a spacer out of half inch plate that goes between the pulley and the bell housing. The gears can t make contact to turn the pulley, looks good and is safe.
 
So if I understand you correctly, what you're really saying is that the pulley assembly really runs off of the drive shaft and not directly off of the engine? Is that correct?
 
There is a spacer that fits between the pulley and the tractor housing that keeps the pulley from turning for show tractors.
 
This is what the spacer looks like. It holds the pulley out far enough that the gears don't mesh so the pulley won't turn.
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So why is someone leaving a running tractor unattended at a show ?

That spacer makes no sense to me at all.
 
I doubt that he left it unattended. But, I can fully understand that while you are on one side of the tractor talking to an interested party, just that quick, a kid can run up to the other side of the tractor, and with minimum/no reaction time, the kid sticks his hand into the pulley to check out his intrigue, and instantly, it's too late.
 
(quoted from post at 15:49:53 04/11/18) I doubt that he left it unattended. But, I can fully understand that while you are on one side of the tractor talking to an interested party, just that quick, a kid can run up to the other side of the tractor, and with minimum/no reaction time, the kid sticks his hand into the pulley to check out his intrigue, and instantly, it's too late.

Looks like vintagetractors.com has one of the spacers...

https://vintagetractors.com/jdltrans.html
 

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