How many of you have replaced the

[bajapointe]

Drive belt on your 1500 Series lawn tractor? What's the secret for easy removal of the drive pulley?

I've had my slt1554 for two seasons now and the drive belt failed.
What a P.I.T.A it is to replace thie belt! I had to lift the front off of floor to make room for my impact gun to remove the deck clutch assy. That was the easy part. I then noticed that the actual drive pully needed to be lowered a bit to allow the belt to be removed from around the belt keepers. What idiot at Cub Cadet decided to make the keepers an integral part of the frame itself? (If it were bolted on..... the pulley would not need lowering)
My tractor is always stored indoors , I have 80 hrs on the clock, and that pulley was fused to the crankshaft. I ended up destroying it getting it off. I tried everything in my arsenal to remove it gently. I finally cut away the Keeper tabs with my torches so that I could get my puller behind the pulley.
Now I will have to buy another pulley to go along with the 30 dollar belt I bought.

This is insane. The belt should be replaceable in the field with simple hand tools!

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Fordlords]

I recall a similar post not too long ago regarding a 1000 series tractor- it was the same futility exercise as yours. Not sure what would make those belts fail, we have a 9 year old Craftsman with the original belt that has to have 300+ hours on it. I agree that all belts should be easily replaceable, but if not it would be getting a Kevlar belt and not the OEM one.

-Fordlords-

 

[OhioGuy]

I recently replace the fuel filter on my 5252. It's inside the frame rail just about in the middle of the tractor. There's plenty of room in the engine compartment, sometimes you just scratch your head and wonder in the engineers have ever used the equipment they are designing.

Curt

 

[JTKub]

That is a shame! Baja, honestly I think they EXPECT you to drop it a dealer, pay a cpl hundred bucks and wait 3 weeks during the mowing season. The trans drive belt should last many years. Different setup, but I don't think we replaced the engine-trans belt more than 3x in 25yrs+ on our JD 110. If I ever buy a new belt drive LT/GT again, it's going to be a cheapy gear drive, or a high end JD, Wheelhorse or Simplicity. Here's a bullet-proof, old school belt drive: Toro - Homeowner Lawn & Garden Tractors

Joel

 

[drssg]

that pulley was fused to the crankshaft. I ended up destroying it getting it off.

I had a White lawn tractor with the exact same issue. One of the mechanics at the shop told me that when he changes a drive belt, he loosens the bolts that are holding the entire engine in place. This gives him enough wriggle room to get the new belt in place. He also said that he sees the pulley fusing problem mainly on models with an electric PTO clutch, but he didn't know why.

I ended up destroying my pulley, just like you did. That was just one of many things that p***ed me off about that thing.

 

[Fordlords]

sometimes you just scratch your head and wonder in the engineers have ever used the equipment they are designing.

Curt

Nope, they figure they don't have to. I was called the other day to look at a fire truck at a repair shop that needed it's starter replaced and there was seemingly no way to get at it. We determined that the rest of the fire truck was built around the engine, and the only way to get the starter off was to remove the exhaust manifold, (which would HOPEFULLY work) turning a $300 job in to about a $1500 one. Now that is some nice engineering!

-Fordlords-

 

[JTKub]

One of the mechanics at the shop told me that when he changes a drive belt, he loosens the bolts that are holding the entire engine in place. This gives him enough wriggle room to get the new belt in place.

That's not a bad idea. I had to loosen the engine mounts to install the engine oil drain on my 2544. Even the shaft drivers have some wiggle room.

Joel

 

[Fordlords]

That does make sense with a vertical engine, to loosen the mounting bolts and move or tilt the engine to get the belts off the shaft pulleys. I'd have probably thought of that (yeah, right LOL), but we have only owned two tractors with vertical engines, a 1978 Craftsman LT 10/36 and 1998 LT1000, and neither ever needed the belts replaced. I sort of remember the time I pulled the Tecumseh engine in the mid '80's from the 10/36 to rebuild it, and the belt guides were bolted up with the two rear engine mounting bolts. It was amazing how that simple POS seemed to work better than most of this new stuff out there now, or at least they addressed the fact it was a POS and were sympathetic enough with the buyer to allow for easy repairs LOL!

-Fordlords-

 

[redlinefever]

I truly believe that somewhere in engineering college, they teach a course called "it looks good on paper so it must function ok" !

I honestly feel they should spend a year in their designated field of expertise to learn the reality of working on equipment. One year in the auto salvage biz would change a lot of minds in automotive design. You can see it, but where is the little Jap dude to fit in there and remove that bolt? Oh... I have to take the sheet metal and plastic front end off the car first, you must be joking ..... I worked on industrial equip. with clearances just big enough to get your hand in but not the wrench and your hand, tricks and tools you create to survive repairs in which your are timed in thousandths of seconds!

Is it possible to add an idler pulley to your set up after it is out of warranty? That would make the belt removal quite fast and easy, even if you have to use a longer belt. Some of the older mowers, like AYP and Craftsman used this design and it worked pretty good.

 

[Kubota Tee]

I had to replace the drive belt on my Toro GT2300 today. The belt cost $40 at the local Toro dealer and when I asked how to do the replacement, they mentioned that it would require some maneuvering, but no parts disassembly. I went about removing the mower deck to prepare for the drive belt change and once I got the machine hoisted up I quickly saw that this was not going to be a simple task. It quickly became evident that there was no way of installing the belt without removing the main drive pulley.

I called the dealer to confirm my findings and was told that they didn't have any techs in on a Saturday. I started looking around on the Internet and found a Toro maintenance site that indicated I should take it to my dealer since removing some parts would require special tools. So much for what I was told when I bought the belt! Well, I'm not one to be scared off easily, so I jumped right in and started to get the main pulley bolt loosened. I was able to get the bolt loosened easily enough, and the mower deck pulley came off quite easily.

At this point, I thought I was home free until I noticed that the drive pulley had 3 belt keeper tabs around it that made it impossible to install the belt without somehow getting the pulley slid down the main drive shaft. At this point, I started brainstorming on how to rig up a way to get the pulley off. To my surprise, it slid down the drive shaft quite easily. I anticipated a much more difficult job, but in the end, it was really easy.