62c mower belt flapping

[megotatractor]

Hello,
Noticed the other day while the wife was mowing that the belt on the 62c deck was flapping against the gearbox bracket, and of course the plastic sheave covers are worn and destroyed basically. (due to injury to my ribs in a tornado vs. truck rollover incident I'm not able to mow for now) I assumed there would be something in the sheave but there isn't, I checked all three. Tensioner seems fine. I can't imagine what 's causing the belt to flap like that. Any suggestions? I have inspected the sheaves, all fine, not bent or anything. My 2210 is showing over 545 hours, six years old. I would guess close to 500 hours were mowing. I see the price of a new belt is over 80 bucks and would appreciate some suggestions before I blindly replace it hoping to fix the flapping problem. Note, a few years ago I did get a piece of wood stuck in the mower blades and may have slipped the belt in one spot, could that have gotten worse with wear? Also, there is a spot of rust deep in the left sheave from years ago I got lazy putting it away in the fall. I should also note that the belt has been flapping slightly since new for years wearing away the plastic covers, but it was acceptable in my opinion, but now flapping against that bracket is not tolerable. How much does that belt normally flap if at all? Anyone else have the belt eat away at those plastic covers?

 

[Rotormech]

I currently have 90 hrs on mine and the belt is flapping to the point where it has cut into the plastic pulley guards on both sides. It is leaving black marks on top of mower deck also. I haven't had time to really look into this though.

 

[megotatractor]

I just finished taking the mower completely apart. Inspected every inch of the belt and looks perfect to me - aside from some small abrasions from flapping against that bracket. The sheaves, the outer ones especially, have an ever so slight wobble to them, probably can't be helped???? The blades are perfectly balanced as far as I can tell. I'm stumped, I guess I'll call the dealer and see if they can offer any suggestion.

 

[jsb2b]

I have 3 years of mowing on my 2305 and have noticed that when I get into higher than normal grass(3"+), the sound of the mower changes and in normal mowing, the deck doesn't cut as evenly as it did when new(it never did cut to good where the wheels compressed the grass). I removed the belt guards when I first got the tractor because I know they get filled with clippings, leaves and twigs.

So now I notice that the belt is flapping and really don't like the idea of spending $80 on a belt. The tensioner spring may be weak but the idler arm is not to the stop so I assume it is in specs. Does anyone know how many inch/pounds of deflection the belt should have and where to take the measurement???

I was thinking of rolling the belt over to see if it had more "grip" on the pulleys. I suppose the best thing to do is take the belt off and use a belt measurer(if I could find one) and compare it to a new belt(if my JD dealer had a belt measuring tool).

I think a belt should last for years unless you are brush hogging with the 62C...

 

[megotatractor]

jsb2b, Mine is 6 1/2 years, 500 hours on the original belt. I spoke with the service tech at JD and he was also stumped and unaware of a flopping problem with the 62c deck. I'm guessing because he doesn't mow with one. His first thoughts were with the tensioner and its spring. It's possible I suppose that after 6 years the spring could become weakened. He also suspected something wedged in one of the sheaves which is not the case. The third guess was something about the belt. His best suggestion was to bring in the belt and compare to a new one and measure it. The dealer closed at noon today so didn't have time to go see them so I remounted the deck without the guards and mowed for an hour. I notice the extreme flopping is only intermittent, but will investigate further Monday as I do not want to spend $80 on a belt until I know what's happening. Perhaps I will get by with a couple new sheaves.

 

[thatguy]

What are 'sheaves'??

Brian

 

[megotatractor]

Sheaves - could also be called pulleys, the wheel driven by a belt.

 

[kennyd]

Sheaves - could also be called pulleys, the wheel driven by a belt. see diagram ; http://jdpc.deere.com/jdpc/servlet/com.deere.u90490.partscatalog.view.servlets.HomePageServlet

You can't link to JDParts because it requires a login

 

[megotatractor]

ooops, that's right.

 

[thatguy]

thanks.. I was drawing a huge blank on 'sheaves'


brian