54" early legacy deck idler problems?

[SmilinSam]

Anyone else have problems with the early Legacy 54" deck idler puller arm?

Bought a NOS deck a few years back. Mowed with it for about 2 seasons and the idler arm broke where it was welded to collar part that the bolt goes through the deck to hold it on. Was twisted away fron the gearbox and down.

Welded it back up the the fall before  last and mowed with it some off and on all year last year.  Till the belt snapped in half about September. Took it off to work on the tractor and service it last week. Today looking at it I see the idler arm is twisted again in the same manner...away and down from the gear box. Weld I made held, but the arm seems a bit thin. Wondering if I should starighten it out again and try and weld in a reinforcement to help it stop twisting.

 

Anyone else seen this problem in these decks?

[SmilinSam]

More on this..

I bought the deck new and assume all the parts are the correct factory parts.

There is a stop bracket on top of the idler pulley on the arm. It contacts the bottom bolt head on the decks gear box and prevents the pulley and arm moving any further towards the gearbox.

 

It appears that  the stop hitting the gearbox bolt is what is causing the arm to twist. The only thing I can think of is maybe the wrong spring on the idler arm?  Though it would have to be slapping the gearbox I think to cause it to twist the arm.?

 

I'll keep looking into this... The idler arm does look incredibly thin to me for the application...

[SmilinSam]

Talked to another local  dealerthats been around a few decades and found the answer to this.

The early 54" decks for the Legacy tractors used a idler arm that was silver gold in color and was found to be too thin and would bend easily and often break at the weld to the sleeve welded into it.

Simplicitys answer was to redesign the bracket and use thicker steel. These later ones were black in color.

Going to buy a new idler arm to correct the problem.