Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

It's for the case 444. 73' model year. I'm not sure the exact model of the deck but its the 48".
When I bought it I tried cutting the grass and blew 2 belts in about 5 minutes of cutting time. I took the deck off for winter use and when reinstalling the deck this year I noticed some problems.
It was incredibly difficult to attack the quick connect plate to the pins on the from due to the twisted ( I believe ) bracket. I imagine that's what is causing the belts to break.( Used a 1/2" x 70" kevlar belt as the original 9/16” belt isn't available).
When lifting the deck, the right ride would lift well above the ground but the left side would barely lift.
Where the bracket attaches to the middle of the deck with the 1/2” pins, the left side was very twisted which made me think the attachment point on the deck had been bent up.
This is where I think I made a mistake. I used a hammer to make both attachment points the same height. But that's not possible due to the small plate welded to the height adjustment bar at the back of the deck. Hopefully these pictures will make sense as it seems even to me I'm rambling here!
Left and right sides meaning from the perspective of sitting in the seat. ^this one is the now lowered attachment point and how they no longer line up. ^see how it's twisted due to the plate welded onto the height control rod?

It's difficult for me to see clearly what the problem is. But if it's the bracket I think I have an extra one.

Even if the deck is straight and true, from experience those 1/2" belts just don't last. The 9/16 belts are available through our trusted dealers PM them through these links.

BarnyImp
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myerslawnandgarden
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Gordy

Yeah I have heard that the half inch belts don't work very well. But these ones last under a minute. I don't imagine it would be that bad. Is the lifting bracket supposed to be at an angle like that? It makes it so it couldn't possibly lift up straight

I think the link bracket, on the left side (looking from the back)where the adjusting bolt goes through, needs to be flipped over, so the tab that the adjusting bolt goes through points up.

I'm not sure if it makes any difference but the manual for the J48 deck shows that link bracket, #27, on the right side. Hope this helps.
Tim

Interesting, I don't think I have part 27 and 39 on my deck.

Eugen wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 10:22 pm Interesting, I don't think I have part 27 and 39 on my deck.

I don't know, Eugen, I found a couple of different setups in the manuals. Some looked like the adjustment bolts were different and connected direct to the bracket. Something is definitely off with Vicv07's, it's hard to tell by the pictures but 27 sure looks like it's not right.

Pulleys that are pitted from rust and pulleys that have grooves worn into them from years of belts slipping can also cause your belt to wear out quickly. Your 1/2" belt may be bottoming out in the pulley so that the sides of the belt are not making good contact with the pulley. This includes all deck pulleys and the drive pulley on your engine. The good news is on the older case decks, the individual pulleys can be replaced whereas the newer RM series decks require you to drop $100 on a new pulley/shaft (spindle) assembly I have read that the older Case deck pulleys are made from a better material than the newer RM series pulleys and are more resistant to putting from rust.

So thanks to these pictures, I found the issue was that the two brackets at the back (the 90° one and the straight one that attach to the height control rod) were reversed. I swapped them and adjust the height of the main deck attachment points, and the deck sits and lifts level now. No broken belt this time. Unfortunately still after ~10 minutes of cutting, the belt stretched past the adjustment point. Every 2 minutes or so I would re tighten the belt, until I ran out of adjustment and the belt is too stretched now to spin the blades. Rrrr. Getting closer