Fix One Thing, Break Something Else

The other day I finished welding all the broken and twisted parts of the rake back together, decided against painting the soon-to-be-rusted parts, and then wrestled and cussed the actual rake part back into place with the help of a couple of people (they'll have to stay anonymous because they don't know I'm talking about them).

For a brief moment in time, I thought that I was caught up on repairing most of the broken stuff around here so I patted myself on the back for a job well done, hooked up my little John Deere to the rake to move it out of the way, moved it about twenty feet and heard a weird POP. 

When I pushed in the clutch petal it didn't feel right (no resistance at all) and I couldn't get it into gear with the engine running. After unplugging the neutral start switch and jumping across it so I could start it in gear (good way to run over yourself if you forget to reconnect it), I managed to get it into the barn by starting it in gear to move it and killing the engine when I needed to stop.

After a little bit of wrenching, jacking, blocking, head-scratching, spilling oil all over the floor, and miraculously no knuckle-busting, we had it apart.

It looks like its going to need a new clutch and pressure plate and it'll be almost as good as new.  I'm still trying to figure out how a worn-out clutch could make it impossible to shift into gear but still let it move if it was started in gear.

I need to get it fixed quick so I can get on to the important business of breaking the next thing (it seems like that's how things work around here most of the time).