No Love, and no Joy !!

Yesterday I decided to replace the Lovejoy couplings on my logsplitter. I removed the pump and the "bracket that houses the pump and engine drive shaft connection." That was simple. It was immediately clear that the teeth on the pump side of the connection were completely gone (picture later, not in this post). With an Allen wrench I loosened the set screws of both Lovejoy couplings but could NOT slide them off their shafts.

Here is the one stuck on the engine drive shaft:


A few years ago I read a humorous book about life and tractor repair. In that book, the author, Roger Welsch, told of a trick for removing stuck parts. Spray some Liquid Wrench on the stuck parts, tap with a hammer, wait. Repeat until you can get the parts unstuck. I spent about 2 hours doing that (every half hour) and got impatient. In the past I have used a special tool for pulling a steering wheel off of its shaft, so I figured there must be a tool to do this. I drove to a couple of stores and found a device that I believed might work. It is intended for pulling gears off of shafts (yes, a "gear puller"). That particular store was also the one that sells the replacement Lovejoy couplings, so I was able to choose the size of gear puller that would work best by comparing it to a new Lovejoy coupling.

Here is the gear puller, installed and ready to do the job:


The gear puller has arms with "jaws" that you place behind the gear (or LJ coupling) and a bolt that you snug up to the end of the drive shaft. Then, by turning the bolt it exerts force against the shaft (a push) and force behind the gear (a pull). This worked PERFECTLY. As I was typing this I realized that this is very much like how a "screw drive" garage door opener works.

Here is the shaft after removal:


So that is one victory. However, the pump is mounted to a metal plate. The distance between the LJ coupling and that plate is too small for the jaws of the gear puller to get into. I can't remove the plate because the LJ coupling needs to come off first. SO I may just have to be patient with the Liquid Wrench method. Unless I can come up with an attachment for the gear puller.

Part 2 of this repair will come after Thansgiving. Stay tuned.