By
rogden
Hey everyone I am new to Red Square, I just got a new to me, c160. I believe its a 1977, it came with a rear discharge three blade 42 inch mowing deck. Listening to the 16hp kohler, idle sealed the deal for me, you just gotta love that sound!
It had a brand new huffy blue belt on the pto running to the deck when i bought it. To make a long story short, it spewed white smoke under any load and burned up the belt in about 30 minutes. I did some research and determined the belt must have been to loose, so I cleaned up the tractor, went and got another huffy blue belt 96 x 1/2 installed it...tightened that mutha up and cut some grass. I have about 2 acres and the grass was tall but about a third way thru I noticed the belt flopping around like it was loose. Sure enough it was, I tightened it again...and again...and again. By the time I was done cutting the grass the belt looked like it had been on there 10 years and i was almost out of adjustment on the mule drive. The belt was thinner and badly frayed.
Now when the first belt failed i took the deck off checked out the spindles, they were not loose no rough spots and i greased them. I also checked the mule pulleys, I didn't see any way to grease them but they spun nice. I pulled the pto hub off checked both bearings and greased them with lithium grease. Everything looked good!
After the second belt was shot I decided to try and diagnose the problem. I can spin everything with my hand, with the belt on, it feels ok. But what i noticed was the pto belt as it comes off the engine side pulley of the pto hub the side of the belt rubs the side of the pulley on the pto. It rubs on the tall side or the friction pad / clutch side. I stood up and looked down and saw the belt was running on a angle inwards towards the motor as it goes down the the v pulley which is closest to the motor on the mule drive.
So I think this is the problem, it makes sense to me anyway that rubbing on the side of that belt would cause heat and would fray the belt, which is what I have. I just don't know how to adjust the mule to align the pulleys. Maybe its not the mule and the motor slide on the on the mounts causing the mis-alignment.
Any help would be much appreciated folks!
Best Regards,
Rick