Introducing Myself

[Windy Hill Farm]

Hay I'm new to this and I'm a woman so bear with me . I am trying to find help replacing a drive belt on my 60 inch zt hd ...Just wanted to know if I need to remove the clutch on this mower like I had to on an old White I used to work on .?

 

[tbarnett]

Do you have an owner's manual? If I remember correctly, your mower deck has spring loaded idler pulley arms which should not require removing the PTO clutch.

 

[Windy Hill Farm]

Thanks for the reply .I will have a chance to get a new belt and work on mower cause it's raining again . Manual doesn't mention removing clutch but it's going to be a tight squeeze to reroute belt ... .tensioner spring had also unhooked it's self . thanks again .DEB

 

[bertsmobile1]

No you don't have to remove anything other than unplug the wiring to the clutch.
But you will need some brute force to take the tension off the tensioning pulley.
Usually the tensioning pulley arm will have a 1/2" square hole punched into it.
If this is the case you use a long breaker bar in the hole to lever the tension pulley.
If not the it is a tight socket on the pulley mouning bolt and a long bar again.
It is not unheard of for me to have to resort to pushing them with my foot, some of those springs are really heavy.

 

[Windy Hill Farm]

No you don't have to remove anything other than unplug the wiring to the clutch.
But you will need some brute force to take the tension off the tensioning pulley.
Usually the tensioning pulley arm will have a 1/2" square hole punched into it.
If this is the case you use a long breaker bar in the hole to lever the tension pulley.
If not the it is a tight socket on the pulley mouning bolt and a long bar again.
It is not unheard of for me to have to resort to pushing them with my foot, some of those springs are really heavy.

Thanks for the help , Got my Rachet bar and a helper length of pipe ,main mower deck belt is an easy off , spring on hydro belt hopefully will be just as easy .... just a tighter space to work in . Thanks again. Deb

 

[bertsmobile1]

Be real careful with a bar / pipe on the end of a ratchet.
There is 5/8 of SFA inside the wrench to take the force. A T bar or breaker bar are a lot safer to use on some thing that is spring loaded.
If you do use your ratchet then have a little think of where it will go and where your hands will end up should it break or slip.
Very easy to end up with a bar in the head then smacking your head on the steel frame / pulley etc under there.
While I can do them 4 wheels on the ground, usually I reverse the ZTR on some ramps to gve me some space and make sur the mower is very firmly supported.
I have a feeling that the drive belts were designed to find work for midget weight lifters.

 

[Windy Hill Farm]

Thanks guys for the help ...got the new belt on ...Had an extra set of hands to put the tensioner spring back on the pin ...used a piece of orange hay bale twine and there is an access hole in the frame for just that spring ... The tricky part was at the clutch ..there was two clutch stop brackets that had to be removed just to get the belt up to that pulley and because the tensioner spring was already off feeding the belt on the other pulleys was a snap . a video of this would have been too funny ,so next time I will get my grandson to video it ... Thanx again ....Deb