Hi friends
So sometime last year I bought a second hand RZ4619 Model 965921501 (2009) off of Facebook marketplace after my little John Deere ride on cracked its cylinder head. It mowed all year with relatively few problems however after our first mow this year the cam shattered and we had to rebuild. This is where I found that it had an aftermarket blade clutch on it and it was significantly harder to remove than I thought it should be but didn't really give all that much attention to it.
Once I came back to reassembling though something was definitely wrong because I could tell that the top of the protruding key on the clutch had sheared off at some point and it was very worn because the bushing between the clutch and the drive belt was missing. I bought a new old stock OEM blade clutch and I just don't understand why it is so tight to fit on. Like we're talking it takes hundreds of pounds of force to get it on the shaft and once you do there's not really a way to align the key in a way that makes sense where you can actually see what you're doing. I've checked the part number against whatever schematics I could find for it online and I just don't know if I'm missing something or if I'm just being stupid and this is how it's supposed to go on? Any other mower I've watched you know videos of them taking the blade clutch off It just slides right off and on, but I get nowhere near that level of ease with it.
Any help would be appreciated