Repairs Neighbor's mower chewing up Blade belts

[satcomjimmy]

My neighbor is enlisting me to help get his mower back in commission. It's a toro wheel horse 71221 that's going through a blade belt within 3-4 mows and his yard is about 1/4 acre. He doesn't have a belt to put on and look at yet but I wanted to see if anyone here has experienced this type of thing and thus if there is anything I should look for. I have only had an old Murray riding mower and I had issues with bent guide rods cutting belts but so far everything looks aligned on his. I asked him to pick up a replacement belt so we can get it on and see if anything is rubbing that shouldn't be. The one thing I noticed was that the pulleys have a bit of rust on them. Is that enough to cause belts burning up that fast?
Thanks to all for any help.

 

[BKBrown]

Pictures of the belt / pully system would help !

 

[twall]

Not sure about the newer WH, but they used to have a wider, proprietary belt size...and the standard, narrow cheaper common belts would burn right up. He using genuine belts?

We went round and round about this, me and my dad, years ago with our WH....he refused to buy the gennie belts, and we tore through them like crazy. (Of course, it was MY fault the belts burned up every month....yeah RIGHT!) He finally spent the dough to get the genuine article, and it never burned up again. I won! (He also never bought another generic part for that tractor......)

 

[satcomjimmy]

Not sure about the newer WH, but they used to have a wider, proprietary belt size...and the standard, narrow cheaper common belts would burn right up. He using genuine belts?

From the scrap of belt I saw, it was a thin, newer style belt but it is a toro with a 1999 model year and the blade pulleys look like they are made for that size belt. He still hasn't gotten a replacement so I haven't seen it on the mower yet.