JD R pony motor...your thoughts

Howdy folks,

Well, a problem I've been living with for about a year or more has finally gotten to the "uh oh, now I have to do something about this" point. I've been having issues with my pony motor clutch not wanting to engage the cogs on the flywheel so I can crank the big motor over. It just wants to grind against the flywheel and not slide into position to start cranking. For a good while all you had to do was pull the pony clutch lever a few times and it would eventually seat itself in but now it won't at all. I started workin on removing the clutch housing down in the barn yesterday (unfortunately it didn't quit in the shop) and found I'll have to either remove the pony motor from the tractor or pull the flywheel in order to get it off. So, to make a long story short, has this happened to anyone here and if so what caused it? Like I said, I haven't gotten into yet but wanted some ideas of what to look for when I find a way to get it pulled up to the shop and started so i can drive it in (it's in the barn in front of all the tractors that could pull start it and all I have otherwise is my farmall A ha ha). God bless.

--old fashioned farmer

p.s. the pic is of the R when I had it split in the shop workin on replacing 3 gears and the transmission gasket back in the summer of '03. Fun time that was.