prs
Platinum Member
At about 750+ hours my original drive belt shredded into many itty-bitty pieces of cording and rubber. Must have come off the rear groove and tangled with the keeper. I had a spare and replacement on the 4500Z was a breeze, but I did get some extra clearance by removing three front grill fasteners on the right hand side. In the process, I rotated the unbelted pully and thought it a bit rough. I removed the pully to inspect the two ball bearings (KOYO-6305AS-ROM-049). These are cery common industrial "rubber" shielded ball bearings. The bearings with the pully in hand both felt smooth, but given the hours of hard use I deciced to remove a shield from each to inspect. The remaing grease was very sparce, black and dry. I did not press them out, but cleaned them with kerosine with just the outer sheilds off. Used compressed air to remove the kerosine. Then I repacked each bearing with shear resistent polyurea multipurpose grease before replacing the shields. This may be a chore to add to the maintenance list about every 500 hours or so. I have noticed DonnyBoy has a nice YouTube showing how to do this if you have not done before. A set of new bearings would probably be less than $25.00 or so US.
prs
prs