Hooked the 5000 to the haybine this summer and pulled up to the shop. Started the tractor in neutral, then jumped on to go and it would not go into gear. The gears would just grind like you weren't stepping on the clutch. Monkeyed with it abit, but didn't cure anything, so shoved it aside and put another tractor on the haybine. Left the clutch linkage unhooked. This fall I used it on the blower by shutting it off to shift gears and got it into position. Got it into the shop today, hooked the clutch linkage back up and it worked fine. Anybody got a clue as to what is happening? Hate to split it if I don't need to, but hate to have it fail when its needed.

My 5000 clutch would get stuck if it was not used for a while (more than 4 weeks). It has done this maybe 5 times in the last 16 years. Each time we would start the tractor in gear and drive it down the road and hold the clutch down and tap the brakes....each time the clutch would break back free. It's been a while since this has happen....but the tractor gets more frequent use now.

One time a cousin borrowed dad's 850 and brush hog to mow a few acres behind his house, when he got done decided to clean the tractor and mower up before bringing it home so he washed it. After it had dried off he when to bring it home and found the clutch was stuck, after telling us what he did we rocked the tractor back and forth a few times and the clutch came loose.
We're guessing the rapid cooling and condensation from washing the tractor while it was hot caused the clutch to stick to the flywheel.

From that day on we never washed a hot tractor, we let them cool off before washing. That clutch never stuck again.

Have played with it again and still seems to work fine. will take it out and drive some and then grind a batch of feed tomorrow, if it still works think I'll leave it and hope for the best.

Could be stuck clutch disc... could be bad pilot bearing. I put a clutch in my 5000 this summer and the NEW pilot bearing is bad. SO now I got to split the old lizzard again... and this time it will get a non-china bearing.

Rod

The clutch was sticking on my 5000, pulled in apart and found the input shaft seal was letting trans oil in to the clutch housing and getting on the disc.

Pulled my 4500 apart for a stuck clutch from setting, water and oil pored out of the clutch housing, the drain hole in the bottom of the clutch housing was plugged up, replaced the input shaft seal while I was there.