ZD323 Deck Belt

[GreenGuy23]

Last year my ZD323 belt had a slight mishap. The rubber backing on the belt came off and flew all over the yard. Instead of being a single belt it transformed itself into 2 vbelts.
I mowed with it the rest of the summer like that. I had it replaced this year (there's never enough time in the day to get things done so the dealer took care of it).

I believe that my deck belt still has some slack in it. There is an occasional vibration that is only present with the PTO on. With the mower off I took a peek under the inspection panel in the floorboard and noticed that the belt guides in the back (I assume that is what the metal studs sticking up are called) are pretty clean where the belt has hit them (this is most likely the source of the vibration I'd imagine).

What do I need to check/adjust? I imagine my tension spring could be wore out since I waited quite a while to change the bad belt out. It mows okay other than the blades being dull. I didn't want to start throwing parts at it.

 

[Monster5601]

I'll just throw this out there for thought. Never had any issues with the belt but did have vibration when the blades were spinning, on occasion. My vibration issue was caused by me, when I replaced the blades, on the center blade, I installed the cup washers upside down thus not putting proper pressure on the blade to shaft.

 

[GreenGuy23]

The weird vibration didn't happen until the belt shred. I am still not 100% on why the belt backing decided to come off. I imagined it was because the machine had 400+ hours on it. I also found some debris in the guards that cover the pulleys on the side of the deck (small sticks and stuff). I took those plastic guards off but plan to put them back on (if I can find them).

Tensioner pulleys and spring look to be about $10.00. I will put that on there and see what happens. Hopefully its something as simple as that.

 

[mikester]

Last year my ZD323 belt had a slight mishap. The rubber backing on the belt came off and flew all over the yard. Instead of being a single belt it transformed itself into 2 vbelts.
I mowed with it the rest of the summer like that. I had it replaced this year (there's never enough time in the day to get things done so the dealer took care of it).

I believe that my deck belt still has some slack in it. There is an occasional vibration that is only present with the PTO on. With the mower off I took a peek under the inspection panel in the floorboard and noticed that the belt guides in the back (I assume that is what the metal studs sticking up are called) are pretty clean where the belt has hit them (this is most likely the source of the vibration I'd imagine).

What do I need to check/adjust? I imagine my tension spring could be wore out since I waited quite a while to change the bad belt out. It mows okay other than the blades being dull. I didn't want to start throwing parts at it.

Make sure the belt is routed properly. My ZD326 has a pin sticking out of the deck thats hard to see and its easy to put the belt around the wrong side of that pin. Also check that your tensioner is properly adjusted. There shouldn't be any vibration on the new belt.

 

[Cable Guy]

Check the pulley on the gearbox and make sure it is running true. My key way sheared just ever so slightly throwing it out of true witch eventually chewed up the belt. It was an easy fix just new key and pulley and new shaft into gear box. I had a vibration similar to the one you described. 400 hrs is not a lot of hrs by the way. This happened to my machine at 1800 hrs. It has 3000 hrs on it now.