Need help on clutches for ride on mower, have a mtd belt drive 6 speed sliding pulley system on it now.Totally no good for what i want.Way to fast to mow weeds not lawn.When in low gear mower has no guts to mow, when reved up and in low gear mows too fast, and stalls.Belts get wet and slip or burn out due to riding clutch, to try to keep mower going slow, and blades spinning fast.Hench now the motor has blown up.Have a 6.5hp and a 12 hp briggs and stration engine.To use as drive only to replace the one that blew up.As for the mower part i have mounted a rover 36 inch cutter deck on the back run by a 6.5 hp motor.Have gone out and brought 3 selfpropelled roller drum mowers for the cogs and chains to replace drive system.geared down really low now. But need help on a clutch system. Dont want to use a centrifical clutch set up, because it will kick in at to many revs,and with the cog set up will be way to jerky. need a clutch like what is on a car {smooth release}:any ideas? Also it will need to go on a 20mm shaft 6.5hp motor. Or 25mm shaft 12 hp motor.
need help on clutches for ride on mower
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ampa
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Just to imform you that this is indeed a tractor site/forum,but more or less designed to owners of all compact and full size tractors,your best bet is to join a forum for small tracto's LT/GT/YT e.t.c. to get faster response and correct answers for your belt isses,unless you do own a compact or full size tractor as well,but even then you should pick the correct forum for whatever machine you need info on........ anyhow :welcome: to TBN....... Ampa 
BHD
Veteran Member
I needed more power and slower speed one time on a lawn tractor I was using to pull sprinkler pipe in lawns, I took and made a sub frame, put some larger tires on and bolted small sprockets on the original hubs, and large sprockets on the new 15' rim tractor tread tires, and (in my case weight it down and I could pull irrigation pipe fairly easily with it,
another idea would be is to take a smaller swath on the mower so it can handle the load,
and forget about clutching and trying to rebuild the unit, many times in weeds I will only mow 12 or so inches, instead of trying to mow the 38" the deck is, and I find its mows cleaner as well, as it re-mows the area that is being lapped, the speed of mowing is about the same as trying to crawl and cut a lot of stuff, at once,
I mow about 7 aces at times with the old JD 111, and lap a lot of it as it is not mowed very often, even tho many times I could slow down with the first gear, like I said it seem to be a better job to lap and make a smaller cut on each pass.
most lawn tractors use a belt type clutch, with a tightener on it, the trick is to make some guides that keep the belt close but not touching the power sheave,(motor) and the belt will release when loosened,
I have seen some friction clutches at one time but they were expensive
the other type of clutch one may consider, is a variable sheave unit that is centrifugal in nature but also, when it is low RPMs it is small to large pulleys, thus gear reduction and more power, and when speed up it changes to large to smaller pulley thus more speed,
like this, http://www.mfgsupply.com/m/c/218353A.html
or http://www.cheetahsupply.com/gokarts.htm
if your just using the mower for a power or tractor unit and a separate pull behind mower, it should work well,
but if I read correctly more horse power would not hurt you any on the mower end of it,
another idea would be is to take a smaller swath on the mower so it can handle the load,
and forget about clutching and trying to rebuild the unit, many times in weeds I will only mow 12 or so inches, instead of trying to mow the 38" the deck is, and I find its mows cleaner as well, as it re-mows the area that is being lapped, the speed of mowing is about the same as trying to crawl and cut a lot of stuff, at once,
I mow about 7 aces at times with the old JD 111, and lap a lot of it as it is not mowed very often, even tho many times I could slow down with the first gear, like I said it seem to be a better job to lap and make a smaller cut on each pass.
most lawn tractors use a belt type clutch, with a tightener on it, the trick is to make some guides that keep the belt close but not touching the power sheave,(motor) and the belt will release when loosened,
I have seen some friction clutches at one time but they were expensive
the other type of clutch one may consider, is a variable sheave unit that is centrifugal in nature but also, when it is low RPMs it is small to large pulleys, thus gear reduction and more power, and when speed up it changes to large to smaller pulley thus more speed,
like this, http://www.mfgsupply.com/m/c/218353A.html
or http://www.cheetahsupply.com/gokarts.htm
if your just using the mower for a power or tractor unit and a separate pull behind mower, it should work well,
but if I read correctly more horse power would not hurt you any on the mower end of it,
Last edited:
bobodu
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Go with the slip belt. Like has been mentioned,they can be tricky to keep the belt on...but they are dirt cheap and will never let you down. Takes a bit of experimenting to get the guides just right.