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Belt won't stay on?


MrSteele

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The belt from the PTO to the top of my 42" deck won't stay on. I replaced the belt on both the PTO and to the deck after the pto decided to eat its belt when the idler got trash behind it and one side was running on top of the belt, digging into it. The other belt looked like it was on its last leg, actually, it had already started running upside down in the grooves. The mower runs fine, until it gets in a hard cut, then the belt pops off. Didn't happen before replacing it.

Any ideas? I am thinking cracked pulley, but it does not appear to be so. The belt is twisted in application, so alignment can't be the issue. The sides of both pulleys are in good condition

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The PTO belt to my 42" mower did the same thing a few weeks back - I checked the belt tension and it was way out of the 'green' section on the idler bracket - the front idler pulley flanges were almost touching the rear idler PTO pulley. So I tightened up the belt slack by sliding the rear idler pulley farther out the slotted groove.

One other time I got in too much of a hurry and mistakenly put a new PTO belt on the inboard cone clutch pulley groove instead of the outboard groove, which made too sharp of a belt angle and in short order de-laminated the new belt before throwing it off - that was a $35 oops.... A couple things to check for at least.

Is your center arbor turning freely with no spindle play or restricted bearing sounds that would impede it from spinning ?

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Rebuilt deck last year with American made bearings, runs so smooth still that you have to check from time to time to see if clippings are coming out.

Might have something on the tension, though. When I put the deck in gear, I have to lift it a bit then drop it back down to get the clutch to engage. Will check that

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Found it! Checked again the level of the deck, checked the clutch pulleys, and noticed that the driven pulley had a lot of side to side slack. Had to remove the clutch to get the key out of the deck pulley, but was able to completely remove the side to side motion. I am not certain of the adjustment, so I left about .010 between washers and pulley. Put it back together, cut grass and leaves for about 2 hours.

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quote:Originally posted by DMKNLD

The PTO belt to my 42" mower did the same thing a few weeks back - I checked the belt tension and it was way out of the 'green' section on the idler bracket - the front idler pulley flanges were almost touching the rear idler PTO pulley. So I tightened up the belt slack by sliding the rear idler pulley farther out the slotted groove. One other time I got in too much of a hurry and mistakenly put a new PTO belt on the inboard cone clutch pulley groove instead of the outboard groove, which made too sharp of a belt angle and in short order de-laminated the new belt before throwing it off - that was a $35 oops.... A couple things to check for at least. Is your center arbor turning freely with no spindle play or restricted bearing sounds that would impede it from spinning ?


id="quote">
id="quote">I've put the belt on wrong several times and had that special 35.00 oops
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