This part comes as a kit and the price is almost as much as the mower costs. I think that if I could get it off that another brand might fit. These parts are rare as it is either on backorder or speical order. any help on this would be great.
OK... I bought one of the WE261's at a bargain price knowing I'd have to do some work on it. At this point and after reading all of the complaints about the machine I now consider myself nearly one of the only experts around on the thing. I've made a new drive wheel out of a Snapper part, that didn't fix the problem, so I figured the next thing to go bad was the planetary gear shaft that was bouncing about after the drive wheel was fixed... have now dropped the entire transmission assmbly and replaced that part (by the way... it isn't nearly as difficult as you would expect just looking at the machine, the drive shaft isn't press fit with sprockets as it would appear looking in at it.. they are all slipped on a spline and held in place with snap rings... piece of cake to work on) but I fear that the real problem may be the motor shaft hub that has a stamped key way in it instead of a real key to hold it tight to the motor shaft. After analyzing the entire assembly I think that may well be the problem that most people are complaining about except you can't really tell that until you disassemble the entire thing. The hub was lose on the shaft which brings me to my current problem.... the hub is held in place by a L/H bolt but it's covered on the drive pulley by some sort of smooth surface cap. Who knows how in the sam hell you get that cap cover off the drive pulley? Please let me know so I can put this mass of parts back together and get to mowing grass. Thanks