Does this unit have an electric clutch to engage the brakes........that may not be adjusted correctly?

When you said "before I pulled the motor ,everything worked fine" does that include the mower deck?
Shacking and sparks generally means your mower deck spindles are shot.

I would also suspect the elect. clutch wiring Chafed and grounding out or the elect clutch itself from the oil leaking down on it?. Your going to have to pull the deck and engage the elect. clutch to see if you still see the sparks. IF not then as suggested above inspect you deck pulleys and see if the turn freely? one maybe frozen or brg's so bad that it verily turns causing clutch overload and the shaking from the hard turning brg. I would also check the air gap on the elect. clutch as baymee suggested.

Yes, the deck and everything worked fine, i mowed a couple of passes before it smoked me out.

There is an excessive amount of oil that leaked onto the clutch. The wires appear to be in ok shape. The pully's on the deck are all in good condition.

I'll pull the deck again and see if the clutch is the problem. Thanks for the help.

get the clutch, pulleys, belts, etc. cleaned up and completely free of that residual oil. Can easily cause smoking from slippage.

Did you by chance notice the sparks in the dark. It is possible that the sparks you saw your being expelled out the exhaust from the muffler. But it is also possible that the PTO clutch is slipping and heating up enough to generate some sparks. If that is the case you will surely need to perform an air gap adjustment on the PTO clutch.

Ok, so i just got done replacing both head gaskets as they were both blown. Runs like a top now. I removed the deck and with the mower running i engaged the mower blades and it bogged the engine down and wanted to kill it. No sparks this time. Sparks might have been from the exhaust as one bolt wasn't tightened very well, or from the head itself as the gaskets had 2" spots missing.

So i'm going to remove the clutch and clean it, one of the oil leaks dripped right into it and it flung allot of oil out when i started it last.

It has to be something i did since it worked fine before i took it all apart, but not sure.

Update, it all works fine, I'M MOWING :) i took the clutch off, looked at it, wiped it down a bit, checked the pulley's, re-installed it, crossed my fingers and it worked.

When i checked it without the deck on, i didn't realize that it had the seat safety switch and thats why it was shutting down.

I'm guessing i had something missalinged or something simple like that.

This is a great forum, i learned allot here, there is tons of info that i would have never gotten anywhere else without having to pay for it. Thank you all for your suggestions.

and we always appreciate the feedback/followup. Glad yer back up and runnin, again.

I recently bought a used Craftsman 2042 mower. The PTO clutch sparks alot when I shut down the deck. How do you adjust the air gap on the PTO clutch?

It likely isn't adjustable. If it is, it would have 3 nuts on the bottom.You evenly tighten the nuts and check with a feeler gauge so you get the proper gap.

I have a Ch lt 1500. That is doing the same thing only when I engage the deck belt. It will start sparking around the front pulley continue engaged I bought 2