Chewing belts.

[Harry]

Noel, on the 446 snow machine I did eliminate the manual clutch and installed an electric clutch. It was an early clutch that had to be shimmed to adjust. The clutch was off a JD tractor that I purchased off of CL. I have had no problems with it since I installed. Harry

[propane1]

Noel, on the 446 snow machine I did eliminate the manual clutch and installed an electric clutch. It was an early clutch that had to be shimmed to adjust. The clutch was off a JD tractor that I purchased off of CL. I have had no problems with it since I installed. Harry

That’s great Harry. So did it bolt onto the engine screen like mine does in my pictures. ?

Noel

[DavidBarkey]

So, I’m just wondering, and I know this post won’t fix my trouble, but just wondering, who ever in the last 49 years took the manual clutch off and put the electric one on, where did they get this clutch ? By way the electric on is bolted on, see pictures, it looks like that could be where the manual pto was bolted on. ??? Just wondering.

Noel

Noel , looking at the last pics you uploaded . the belt appears to start on the front Vee groove and then end up on the back (closest to the engine ) upside down . Is it possible you are putting it on the wrong pulley and its is flipping and eating it self up after that ?

[Harry]

Noel, on the 446 snow machine I did eliminate the manual clutch and installed an electric clutch. It was an early clutch that had to be shimmed to adjust. The clutch was off a JD tractor that I purchased off of CL. I have had no problems with it since I installed. Harry

That’s great Harry. So did it bolt onto the engine screen like mine does in my pictures. ?

Noel

Noel, mine was on an Onan powered 446. The electric clutch was mounted on the clutch hub. The clutch hub shaft was 1 1/8” in diameter and the electric clutch was 1”, so it had to be turned down to fit. After mounting the hub and clutch I noticed that the belt on the pulley didn’t line up with the mule pulley. So I ended up cutting the frame and added 2” to the frame with 2” wide structural steel channel pieces. Then welded to the frame with E7018. It worked out beautifully and has run terrific for years. Harry

[propane1]

Noel, on the 446 snow machine I did eliminate the manual clutch and installed an electric clutch. It was an early clutch that had to be shimmed to adjust. The clutch was off a JD tractor that I purchased off of CL. I have had no problems with it since I installed. Harry

That’s great Harry. So did it bolt onto the engine screen like mine does in my pictures. ?

Noel

Noel, mine was on an Onan powered 446. The electric clutch was mounted on the clutch hub. The clutch hub shaft was 1 1/8” in diameter and the electric clutch was 1”, so it had to be turned down to fit. After mounting the hub and clutch I noticed that the belt on the pulley didn’t line up with the mule pulley. So I ended up cutting the frame and added 2” to the frame with 2” wide structural steel channel pieces. Then welded to the frame with E7018. It worked out beautifully and has run terrific for years. Harry

Nice. A little more work than I want to get into Harry.

Noel

[propane1]

So, I’m just wondering, and I know this post won’t fix my trouble, but just wondering, who ever in the last 49 years took the manual clutch off and put the electric one on, where did they get this clutch ? By way the electric on is bolted on, see pictures, it looks like that could be where the manual pto was bolted on. ??? Just wondering.

Noel

Noel , looking at the last pics you uploaded . the belt appears to start on the front Vee groove and then end up on the back (closest to the engine ) upside down . Is it possible you are putting it on the wrong pulley and its is flipping and eating it self up after that ?

Nope. I always put it on the V pulley closest to the engine. The other V pulley that’s closest to the plastic fan is 3/8” I would say. The belt is in that front V pulley, just to see if the 1/2” belt would fit in it. And it does not.
I have no idea what this double pulley and electric clutch is off of. The two pulleys are one cast piece.


Noel

[MattA]

Noel is your deck level? On my RM48 deck the front of the blade is supposed to be around 1/8" lower than the back.

I think worn mule drive and mounting pins were mentioned... I assume no broken welds or cracks in the deck and mule drive... Spindles and spindle bearings are good...

[propane1]

Noel is your deck level? On my RM48 deck the front of the blade is supposed to be around 1/8" lower than the back.

I think worn mule drive and mounting pins were mentioned... I assume no broken welds or cracks in the deck and mule drive... Spindles and spindle bearings are good...

Every thing is worn some Matt. I don’t see any cracks any where. Middle spindle bearing is noisy but spins free. I’m kind of leaning toward the pulley on the engine. I think it’s worn to the point that the belt is touching the bottom of the pulley.

Noel

[MattA]

Noel is your deck level? On my RM48 deck the front of the blade is supposed to be around 1/8" lower than the back.

I think worn mule drive and mounting pins were mentioned... I assume no broken welds or cracks in the deck and mule drive... Spindles and spindle bearings are good...

Every thing is worn some Matt. I don’t see any cracks any where. Middle spindle bearing is noisy but spins free. I’m kind of leaning toward the pulley on the engine. I think it’s worn to the point that the belt is touching the bottom of the pulley.

Noel

Not sure if this is any help, but I've attached the Colt/Case/Ingersoll belt guide. I "think" you can buy gauges to check your pulleys.

[propane1]

So an update. I believe I have it fixed. Cut the grass here at home with it yesterday and the belt did not flip. Long story. Short story is, I found that the right side mule drive pulley was back to far when the belt was tightened up. So the belt was not entering the pto pulley straight on and the would not slip into the pto pulley properly. So the pto pulley would catch the belt and flip it. Once going in straight the belt would not flip. Sooo, what I did was, I took the 70” belt off and put on a 69” belt. This allowed the belt to be tightened and keep the pulley forward enough to have the belt going into the pto pulley straight. How I found this was, I took a slow motion video of the belt flipping. Then looked at the stills of the video. It showed the belt starting to flip. So that gave me information where to look.
Any way, for now it works, why it worked for two years before with no trouble I don’t know.
Thanks for following along. Hopefully I explained that well enough so you get the idea. Tractor does not have some original parts so hard to figure out.

Noel