Hi all, have a Craftsman LT1000 (917.271811), and through my own stupidity I ended up needing to replace the mower deck belt. So I did, and it was a PITA, and the belt, in disengaged position, is tight. Really tight. Should I expect the belt to loosen after a couple minutes of running, or did I screw something up? I'm reluctant to even start it up, but it looks like everything is where it ought to be. Any common mistakes in doing this sort of thing?
#2
reynoldston
Belts do not loosen up. You got something wrong. Are you sure you got the right belt.
Do you have the belt route right there should be a diagram of the belt route on the mower deck or look in your manual , yes that belt need to be looser and no it will not stretch out that much. By change do you have the belt lever in the engaged position , have you tried to move the lever back and forth ? Do you have the spring in the wrong hole and that's why the belt is tight? Just some ideas for you good luck there:licking::licking::licking::licking:
After looking around yesterday on the forum, I believe that the idler pulley might be hanging up or otherwise stuck. I'll take a second look this morning to verify proper belt routing and the idler. I quadruple-checked the belt PN before I bought it!
Wow, what a headache! The belt I got from Home Depot was mislabeled: lesson learned here is that I should check the PN on the belt itself, not just the package. They didn't have the right belt, so I went to Sears and paid a lot for the new belt. Installed it, destroyed it. I missed one of the pulley retainers. Sooooo, I'm done for the weekend, I ordered a new belt through Amazon. The blades are spinning fine, I was initially checking with the brake engaged. So it wasn't entirely my doing, but I did manage to extend a one hour mowing to about a week now. :confused2:
