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I recently replaced the one of the mandrils on my riding mower (sears lt 2000 riding mower).while doing so I replaced the mower belt (the long one) and after 15 minutes of use the belt slipped off and is shredded inside.is the a tension thing involved,should I have adjusted something.the belt I put on it came from tractor supply whse,not a sears replacement.but it was the same length.help please.
Two possibilities. You replaced one of the mandrels, but what shape are the pulleys in? I once had a Honda yard tractor that the pulleys began to rust on. The deck pulleys had a cover on them that trapped moisture, so they just rusted something terrible during winter storage. They eventually became so rusty that they would shred a brand new belt in 15 minutes or less. New pulleys fixed that problem. Another possibility is that after replacing the mandrel, the pulleys were no longer parallel with each other, thus chewing up the belt. One more thing I just thought of is that even though you bought the belt at a tractor supply warehouse, did they actually sell you a mower belt, or was it just an automotive belt. I discovered the hard way that replacing a mower belt, which can handle the side loading of non parallel pulleys, with a automotive belt that is designed to run only on perfectly parallel pulleys, is not a good idea.
