Well what started out as a seek and fix mission this morning turned into a big turd of a day.
Seemed my pto was squeaking the other day and thought I would look into it today. Went to start the tractor and the battery was pretty low, didn't turn over very well, so ended up bumping the key. Got a half of a revolution in and heard a "clunk" and heard something hit the floor.
So looked under the tractor and found a chunk of aluminum
can't be good. Dug deeper and saw it was the lower ear on the engine where the starter attaches. Seems the PO changed starters at one time or another and never tightened the lower nut, and I never noticed.
I think when I bumped the starter it must have been enough torque to snap the mounting tab. So...... out came the engine. I would like to give the designer of all this engine tin a kick in the butt,, holy smoke, it takes longer to remove all that crap than pull the engine.
Now to see if I can find someone to try and fix it. Think it can be fixed?
Back to the original problem. The bearing is toast, least of my worries now.