engine driven belt clutch /pulley

I have never seen one of those clutches on a rider in USA. I have seen one on a DR Brush mower walk behind looks like the one in the video

Now Dave,
Has it gotten to 15 deg C up there and every one is suffering heat stress ?
Sit down, pour yourself a dram and have a little think.

You originally posted that your were resurecting the MTD and from that you also worked out that very few here had much in the way of experience with it as it is an EU specific model.
You posted some photos of the finished mower on that thread ( which I deliberately did not download ) and got some praise for your handiwork for which you can be rightfully proud.
This is fine and in context .

You then started new thread about the clutch and decided to attach 9 images that had absolutely no relevance to your current problem .
These were downloaded on the assumption that there would be relevant information in them.
What was found that most were out of focus to the point that the ID tag under the seat and even the model number decals were unable to be read .
Is it too much to expect that photos posted are clean clear & sharp ?
Not hard to do even in your workshop all you have to do is either hold the camera very steady or rest it on something solid.

So having wasted 2.5 Mb of my 10Gb monthly limit on useless photos are you surprised about the reply ?
You posted an ebay URL that was not linked so had to be cut & pasted to see what your were talking about, again making it that little bit harder for any one who wants to help you.
As for the You Tube videos, for the aforementioned reason they are never downloaded .
Particularly when most seem to be shot using a phone with a dirty lense at full arms length so they are sea sickening wobbly , out of focus contain little useful information and where ever possible have lots of wind or background noise so you can not hear the dialogue.
Where there is no dialogue you get assulted by the posters equally bad taste in music generally at speaker popping volume.

What would have been appreciated were photos of the actual problem, THE CLUTCH.
And by prefference , laid out in assembled order and each part individually.
Hopefully you would have realised that some effort was made to research your clutch ( Helping you ultimately helps me ) but there is no service parts listed anywhere for it, no aftermarket parts suppliers listed and no service /adjustment proceedures.
It seem to be a works or gets replaced item.

As for the rest of it, like WD 40 belt dressing sprays never ever fixed anything all they do is stop a squeaky belt from squeaking for long enough to allow the customer to rive out of the workshop without a fight.
Might be useful where belts pick up a lot of moisture over night but that is about it and when we were researching this model earlier on it was determined that the belts were wrapped kevlar mower belts in which case a belt dressing is destructive so you can expect the covers to start to shred & fall off in the very near future.

You stated that the mower drive belt slipped gong up hills which tends to indicate that the pulley could be worn past it's service limit in any case but without photos of it that is just speculation.
And I hate replacing complete assemblies as well.

As for the clutch itself I would expect it was fitted to comply with EU recycling laws as a std electric clutch is neither rebuildable nor economic to recycle.

Hopefully by now you have finished your two fingers of single malt and are feeling substantially better

Never knew there was such a thing as a ride on mower snob but man youv'e got them here handing down their perceived 'wisdom' without actually helping anybody , time to return to lurking as no point wasting breath on these specimens bye

Hello all i'm back just thought it might be helpful to someone to post a progress report on clutch repair this item pt no mtd 717 1787a which apparently according to lawn mower royalty 'Bert' no one in the sub continent has ever seen? just one of the most common manual clutches in existence. well since the wonderful 'help' from Bert , pictures out of focus seemed to be his main concern, and i would disintegrate my belt if i put dressing on it (did not happen), and no photo of the linked many times article in question, he assumed a supremely arrogant and dismissive attitude from the start , his main intent seeming to insult the pom, very small minded and sad, particularly since i have NZ and AUS born relatives in both great country's ah well takes all sorts. On to the matter in hand i have been happily mowing away for the past two years odd with my relined and repaired clutch main issue now is the longevity of the lining ,i am using cork 3mm and might experiment with other material for wear comparison, also probably hold the world record for clutch replacement time. hope it helps someone cheers

Just an aside very hard to get pulley tension spring 8" on mower deck nowadays, good value for money alternative is trampoline 8" spring just the job at good price hope it helps