Lessons about changing a NH 914A mower belt.

Steelfan · Jun 12, 2006

After 7 years, the time has come to change the mower belt on my NH 914A mower. This should be easy, right? Well not really. You can't change the belt with the mower on the tractor, because there are two places where mounts must be taken loose. The PTO box on top of the mower must be taken loose as does the tension pulley and also the two pulley covers for starters. The belt will not fit under these two areas. The job took me about 2 hours with about half of that time wasted by trying to hook up the PTO shaft to the mid mount PTO. I don't know who thought of that hook up, but it is a real pain in the neck and back for that matter. Sometimes it goes right on and the next time pulling the lock collar one way while pushing the shaft on the other can be an extremely frustrating task. BTW the belt costs about $50 for anyone that has one of these mowers. I just thought I would share this since I just did it this weekend.

ovrszd · Jun 13, 2006

A small tip for the PTO shaft dilemna. When I have my deck off, I lube the splines and locking ring on the PTO shaft. Also pull the ring to the unlock position, then look in the end of the shaft and locate the steel ball. Push the ball down in it's hole and squirt lube in there. If the ball is dry it doesn't want to get out of the way when trying to put the shaft on. Also remember to grease the ujoint while you are there.

Steelfan · Jun 13, 2006

Thanks, that is some excellent advise and something that I didn't think of. I did grease the shaft, but never thought of the inside.

FlyBoyWV · May 30, 2009

I am having the same problem with mine. I believe it's a 914-A. It's a 48 inch mower mid-mtd mower on my Ford 1220. The mower is labeled Model 960733. I saw in another web note that a 914 owner says that it's a 60 inch belt. When I measured my broken belt, it was 92 inches. Is there that much difference between a 914 and a 914-A?

FlyBoyWV · May 31, 2009

I finally got the belt on my 48" deck. It turned out to be a 94 inch belt. Wow. That is totally different than the 60 inch that was reported in another posting for a 914 deck. Also, that posting showed that there are 3 blade pulleys plus two idlers and one power pulley with that system. My 48 inch deck has only one idler, 2 blade pulleys and the middle blade pulley is connected directly to the power shaft.
The blades themselves were also showing their advanced age, so they needed to be replaced. There is no Ford/New Holland dealer in my area, so I had to modify a set of blades meant for a John Deere 48" deck. Each of the JD blades were about a quarter-inch too long so they had to be ground down from each end. Also, the JD hole is 1/16 inch too small to accomodate the mower's bolt shaft. The hole needs to be 11/16" so I thought I'd go to Sears and buy the 11/16 drill bit and make the hole in the blade large enough to accomodate the shaft bolt for the mower deck . Wow was I surprised to find that the blades are a lot harder than the $26 DeWalt carbide drill bit that I bought. Instead, I had to grind the circumference of the shaft bolt down by 1/16 inch to fit into the new JD mower blade hole. After that, the blades went on flawlessly.
Figuring out the serpentine belt route took only a little longer, but it quickly became obvious that the 92" that I had measured from the old broken belt was too short. It needed to be 93" or greater. I tried to recreate the belt/pulley pattern below using simple typing characters so it will be reliably recreated in this posting, but it appears that the web site repaginates the text so it becomes distorted when it isposted.
__
______/O/ (Power)
/ /
/ /O__(Idler)__________
/O_______________________O/ (Blade)

WilliamBos · May 31, 2009

ovrszd said:
A small tip for the PTO shaft dilemna. When I have my deck off, I lube the splines and locking ring on the PTO shaft. Also pull the ring to the unlock position, then look in the end of the shaft and locate the steel ball. Push the ball down in it's hole and squirt lube in there. If the ball is dry it doesn't want to get out of the way when trying to put the shaft on. Also remember to grease the ujoint while you are there.

What do you use for lube??

WaterDoctor · Oct 13, 2011

I am having a problem with my New Holland mid mount mower. I'm pretty sure it's a 914 but the decal is just about off. My problem is the belt keeps coming off. It worked great for about 2 years and this problem started. I have put it back on about 5 times now and it works from 10-30 minutes and bam, it's off!! I tried adjusting the tension but that didn't help - at least increasing tension. Does anyone have any suggestions. Thank you very much!!

Cubbie · Sep 2, 2013

I have a 914a 72 inch side discharge belly mower. Here's something that may help with belt replacement. New Holland wants $103 for the replacement belt. I finally found an acceptable stand-in. Go to vbelts4less.com and order a B173 belt. It costs $14.81. Its the first belt i've found that lasts as long as the factory belt and i've tried a few other sizes. Also, it is small enough that it can be worked underneath the tension pulley without removing it to put a new belt on. Keep using the 5 and 9/16 inch spring length tension setting. To put the new belt on I also remove the 4 bolts (size 9/16th socket) that attach the gearboxto the mower deck and slide the new belt underneath that pulley. The owners manual says to remove the whole bracket. Not necessary. I also put a bit of wax or graphite chain lube on the two guides that the belt comes in really close contact to along the long stretch of belt on the back end of the mowerdeck. Helps keep from shredding the back of the belt when it contacts those rub points.