GT 2521 PTO Drive Belt Jumps Off The Idler Pulley

[rgevans871]

The PTO drive belt jumps off the right hand idler pulley where the belt makes the turn from vertical to horizontal at the front of the tractor when I engage the PTO. This hasn't happened every time I engage the PTO, but often enough that I burned up one belt after it jumped off the pulley and rode on the shaft between the two idler pulleys. The first time it happened I'd been off the lawn dumping a load of leaves and thought I must of jammed a stick between the mower deck blades, but now I don't think so. After further inspection I discovered that the wire belt retention guard on that right pulley was missing and I ran the mower for sometime afterwards and would jump off to make sure the belt was still on that right pulley after engaging the PTO. I run quite awhile like that until I let my guard down, didn't jump off to check the pulley and the belt jumped off. By the time i noticed the smoke coming out, I had destroyed the belt. After buying a new PTO belt for nearly $50, I decided I'd better replace the belt retainer wire and thought I had the problem fixed. Wrong. The next time it jumped off, I decided the problem might be that I wasn't running the engine at full RPM when engaging the belt which I've always done thinking it was easier on the PTO clutch to not be running at full RPM. So then I started engaging it with full engine RPM and that seemed to work until today. The belt jumped off, but I stopped right away to check it so I think it's still alright. Even though the engine is at full throttle, I nearly stalled it when I engaged the PTO, so I'm looking for your thoughts on what might be my problem. The tractor has 540 hours on it and I've never had any work done on the PTO.

This is not my primary tractor now as I bought a new XT3, GSX this spring which I'm still getting used to, but I'm trying to give the GT 2521 to my son and I'd kind of like to have it working when I give to him as he's not very handy. I think I saw a thread some time ago on this problem, but I did a search and couldn't find anything similar to what's happening to me. Hope everyone is having a good summer. We go from nice to sticky hot.

Ron.

 

[Richard001]

Have you checked the belt tensioner ?
Could be that the belt is to loose and when engaging the PTO, the belt jumps off of the pulley because the tensioner is week.

Richard

 

[tomplum]

You are not the only one to have a struggle with these. The first thing I do is go through the deck and determine that there isn't any drag or bind that makes the belt want to push its way off the mule pulley. The tension spring as Richard mentioned can be fatigued due to its location. Some will say that there is a particular way the belt needs to twist to be happy. Think like the belt as it pushes its way around the pulleys!

 

[jaxs]

You might find a bad bearing, something binding or loose if you remove belt and feel each pulley with hands. Do it after operating a while because bearings often don't bind until they heat up.