1988 John Deere 160 Drive belt

[Lake Life]

Found this mower recently on a yard sale page and I’m in the process of changing the 3 belts on it. Holy cow! Didn’t know I was gonna have to disassemble the whole mower to put the transmission drive belt on. Anyway I didn’t pay much attention to how tight the belt was when I took it off , went to John Deere dealer and got the belts and made sure they matched up in length. The new drive belt feels to loose and I know I have it routed correctly, the idler pulley is adjusted out as far as it will go , how tight is it supposed to be ? The second question is when I go to install PTO belt , is there anything I can loosen to get it back on? Please help !

 

[bertsmobile1]

The transmission belt has to be loose when the brake is applied.
It goes tight when the brake is dissengaged and is pulled tight by a spring
To remove the PTO belt either drop the deck and slide it forward or put a wrench on the tensioning idler pulley bolt to lever it against the spring.