Cub Cadet 182 belts breaking

cam.man67

Member
I picked up this 182 about 2 years ago in trade for a non-running parts ATV I got rid of. It starts up and after sharpening the blades, cut great. I've changed the oil twice, greased what fitting I've been able to find, and it's run great for me...until recently.

Three weeks ago, the belt broke as I was going through some thick stuff behind my pool. No big deal, the belt I think have have been original to the mower so that's fine.

I get a new one, 25 minutes later it breaks! So clearly there is an issue. I've got the deck off the tractor, but nothing is jumping out at me as wrong. I need yalls help!

Here's what I've observed:
-no unusual noise when cutting
-no indication that the belt was about to fail
-no squealing from the idler
-both blade pulleys are level and the belt guards are intact.
-both pulleys have a little play, at most 1/32"
-neither belt appears to have experienced uneven wear.

Should I just replace the pulleys to be on the safe side? What else should I be looking for?
 
First thing to look at. If you buy your belts from an auto parts store such as NAPA. Make sure that you get one that the part number ends in W.

NAPA belts or example.

NBH 4L800 is a 1/2" x 80" belt that is designed for fractional HP motors. You will be lucky to get a full days use out of one on a riding mower.

NBH 4L800W is a 1/2" x 80" belt designed for use on engines up to around 17 HP and work very good on Mowers and other equipment.

You cannot tell the difference just looking at them but they are constructed very differently to meet different specs.
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Second thing to look at is the routing of the belt once it is installed. Once installed engage the deck and mow a few feet with it then just shut the key off. Leave all of the controls where they were when you were mowing and look at how the belts are riding on the pulleys. I have found on some Cub Cadets that the belts do not like being ran if the deck is adjusted to low. It seems as if the 1045's especially do not like being lower than 4 anything lower and people have a hard problem keeping belts on them around here.
 
Mule has it with belts and such. I have seen on one of my machines that had been out of use for over a year. There was a little rust on a couple of the pulleys and it chews the belts up. What I had to do was polish all of the pulleys on the deck and clutch pulley so they were shiny clean. Use like 400 sand paper and elbow grease and take your time. Fixed the problems. Look out for rust spots or rusty pimples on them. Also see if any have bent edges. The belts runs smooth as silk and very quietly on that machine now. One more. After you stall the mower in drive look and see if everything is running TRUE. I had to bend a bracket a little on a machine.
 
bad spindle ?... or bad idler pulley ?... or one that I shamefully did.... put belt on outside of one of the belt guards...
guaranteed to wear the belt fast lol.
 
Thanks for the comments everybody. I did order the correct belt so no worries there. I am thinking the spindle(s) may be bad...I removed the deck the other day, and there's a LOT of play in the spindles. I'm measuring as much as 1/16" side to side when I move it by hand.
 

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