Help! Lawn Tractor drive belt

[Psymon]

Guys I need some help with this Carftsman lawn tractor. I have had loads of fun this year cutting the grass until last week when I switched on the cutting deck and nothing... I checked it and found it had thrown the drive belt. So I thought, easy fix, put the belt back on and we are in business. Nope - I put the belt back on the wheels but for some reason it seems to have about an extra 6 inches of length. Am I going mad? You would have thought it would thread around all of the pulleys and that would be it but no. I have tried several configs with it but it still seems too long when it was already working on the machine fine. Does anyone have experience of these things? I checked Google and found nothing I don't have a model number as it came off ebay earlier in the year and all the stickers have faded. There are 6 pulleys in total.

 

[500e]

http://www.craftsmantractors.co.uk/ask-dennis.html

 

[Psymon]

Wow, thanks for that, hope he can help!

 

[wyn]

I just searched for "craftsman mower deck belt layout" and there were loads of diagrams.

 

[Psymon]

I just searched for "craftsman mower deck belt layout" and there were loads of diagrams.

Yes you are right, but guess what NONE of them match my one...

 

[wristpin]

If you cant find a diagram , drop the deck off and post an image from directly above so that we can see the pulley layout . By the looks of things you are not far off needing a new belt anyway so have a good look down the back for any numbers .

 

[normspanners]

check out the cutter heads the ally brackets corrode through and allow the hubs to move, I have one of those very similar machines and had the same problem with the belts derailing, also on your fifth picture one of the rear pulleys looks to be at an odd angle check that one out.
you can use standard belts for this machine it is best to use a kevlar belt but if using a standard belt dont leave it running and not cutting, as this will burn the belt in one place.

 

[rich r]

you can use standard belts for this machine it is best to use a kevlar belt but if using a standard belt dont leave it running and not cutting, as this will burn the belt in one place.

That's a very good piece of advice for quite a lot of mowers. I trashed two belts on my MTD Pinto which I've been using without the deck engaged to pull a trailer. There's no tension in the belt, but the pulleys still turn so standard cotton covered belts get abraded and fail. Spending a little more on kevlar ones mean they merely get slightly warm. I now tend to just take the deck off if I'm going to be using it for a while not as a lawnmower. It's only a 2 minute job to drop it and remove the belt.