Fastback 435 drive belt tensioner question

[masalser]

I've got a 435 Fasttrack that is currently having a drive belt issue. I've clearly neglected it and as a result the drive belt tension indicator shows that it is way loose. It currently has about 600 hours on it and back at around 300 hours that drive belt tensioner was replaced by the dealer as faulty. It looks like I may have the same problem of a broken tensioner again.

I put the jack bolt in from the bottom in order to adjust the tension, but the tensioner is already so high up that the belt is in the way of the bolt that holds it in position, and I can't really see how to loosen it. It seems like when the dealer messed with it last time they moved it way up well beyond what is shown in the manual pictures and had enough apart that they were able to tighten it in that position. The thing that sucks is the dealer I used to take the machine to is gone now and the closest dealer is now about a 2.5 hour drive away.

I have a heavy equipment mechanic that I can hire to work on it, but he won't have much experience with this particular machine. My questions are:
1) has anyone else had this problem and is it possible that there is an updated tensioner pulley?
2) does anyone have a good recommendation for an online place to order parts?
3) I'm assuming that I should order a new belt and replacement tensioner - does that sound reasonable to any of you who have experience with this machine?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I've attached a photo showing the tensioner and the bolt holding it in place. You can see by the clean area above the washer that it looks like I moved tensioner up a little bit when I put the jack screw in, so I'm guessing that the bolt that is supposed to be holding the tensioner in place is looser than it should be.

 

[SSdoxie]

1. -Take the belt off the tensioner and check tensioner bearing. If bearing is worn out you will run out of adjustment travel. Be sure to adhere to tensioning specs when retightening to prevent excess side load on the bearing which would cause lower hour failure.
2 . - If tensioner is OK see below:
Drive belt may be incorrect part number, is too long. Without knowing your serial number or history of machine I can't say for sure there was a production change in the drive belt and pump pulley size and customers with earlier machines could have had this mod done at no charge within first year after this change came out.
Change came about due to dissatisfaction in travel drive power, stalled too easily. To remedy this gear reduction in the travel motors was changed to produce more torque but this slowed the travel speed down so additional change with this was installing a smaller pulley on the hydrostatic pump which required a shorter drive belt to have adequate tension adjustment.
Production change started with s/n 563212419. This serial number and higher, including those with having serial numbers starting with "AA" require belt number 7125004. Machines below that number were built using belt number 6811245 and larger pulley. If your machine is in the lower number bracket but did have the mod completed on it, it is possible that either belt was not changed or the original number belt was accidentally installed at later time.
You can measure pump pulley to identify which belt is required. Original pulley on early units was 7.44" diameter and uses belt 6811245. After production change pulley is 6.30" dia. and uses 7125004 belt.

 

[masalser]

SSDoxie, thank you for the help. It ended up that The belt was just very worn. The tensioner was in good shape and it actually did have the correct belt on it, it was just that the wear of loosened it substantially.