Ford 2000 PTO Will Not Disengage

I have a '63 Ford 2000 4 Cylinder. Bought it last year with 106 original hours on it and use it as my primary tool on my small farm; now up to 190 hours. Have not had any major maintenance problems up until now, keep it lubed and PMCS before and after each use.

Two days ago I was tilling one of my market garden plots and the PTO would not engage and the shift lever would not move. I tried to remove the side inspection plate but it was stuck and the shifter crank had popped out of the spacer in the shifter shaft. I was able to wiggle it out with some effort and after doing so the the shifter shaft moved freely by hand when the clutch pedal was depressed.

I decided to remove and inspect the PTO shaft and everything there looked good, nothing bent, no indication of shavings and the tines on what I think is called the shaft coupling looked okay even though I could only inspect it from the rear of the reservoir with a flashlight.

I reseated the inspection plate and the shifter crank/lever and confirmed that it engaged the shifter shaft correctly. I reseated the PTO shaft and when I start the tractor the PTO is engaged as soon as I release the clutch, even with the shift lever all the way forward.

I removed the PTO shaft and started the tractor with the PTO shaft removed. Inspecting it from the rear I can see that the tines in the coupling link do not turn with the PTO disengaged (the lever all the way forward) and that they do spin once the lever is shifted to the rear (the PTO engaged setting). This would indicate to me that this is normal operating behavior.

However once I put the PTO shaft back in the PTO shaft is again engaged as soon as I release the clutch. I repeated the whole process again to see if I had missed something and again everything appeared to work correctly (if my logic is right) with the PTO shaft removed.

I am not a mechanic, just a fellow with a shop manual trying to puzzle through this. Any help with what I might be missing?

Open up the inspection cover where the handle is located, and get things unstuck, and then with the tractor not running, Remove the implement shaft from the PTO stub on the back of the tractor and grab the stub and see if it has much free play forward and rearward. I'm guessing that the circlip that's supposed ot keep the PTO shaft from moving fore and aft has popped out of place, and that the external implement shaft is too long and it's pushing the tractor's PTO shaft forward to where it binds with the sliding coupler that is supposed to engage/disengage the PTO.

Thanks, will give it a shot.

the key is... when you put the pto shaft back in... your shaft is pushing the coupling into engaged mode.

No question is... why it it doing that? why is the lever not holding it dis-engaged?

does the coupler side back and forth easily between on and off?

(you may have to turn the pto shaft a bit to line up the splines)

If it slides with no resistance or pressure, I would suspect a bearing loose at the rear or a bad lever not holding the coupler in the off position..

If it has any pressure sliding, I would suspect a very common twisted splines on the pto shaft, coupler or front shaft... but usually the rear pto shaft seems to be the common problem.