Ride-on mower (Castelgarden) pulley removal woes

toughgrass

Hi,

I noticed a few members on here have renovated old mowers. I've recently picked up a 1999 TC 102 mower from Castlegarden. The main drive / upper belt needs replacing, and to do this you have to loosen the various pulleys down - because the pulley stays are welded to the frame.

This is going fine, apart from the rear pulley - which I guess is the transmission pulley as it sits directly under the gearbox, and therefore inaccessible from above.

The strange thing about this pulley is that it has a threaded bolt through it - rather than a smooth metal shaft.

Photo here: https / pasteboard.co/JZhtvMh.jpg (remove spaces)

I cannot get it to move at all, not even to loosen up - and the fact it's a thread seems odd, as how would it easily slide off that anyway?

CelticRambler

Those two holes half way out from the centre suggest to me that you need a pulley removal tool. It looks like a similar arrangement to what I have on a Makita chainsaw.

Any chance it's reverse threaded?

If this is the only pulley you can't remove, is there enough flexibility in the belt now, with the others gone, to manoeuvre it around and off?

boatbuilder

I can't remember if I got mine off or not... if you can't get it off, you can just hammer the belt retainers sideways enough so you can fit the belt through.

In my photo theres a small hole in yellow. Might be able to hammer with a punch through there..

toughgrass

CelticRambler wrote: »

If this is the only pulley you can't remove, is there enough flexibility in the belt now, with the others gone, to manoeuvre it around and off?

Unfortunately not, the welded belt retainers are too close to the pulley. I've tried holding the thread with a pair of grips, and using a tool to rotate (clockwise and anti) the pulley, but no joy there either. I cannot figure if it's one I'm meant to pull off with a tool, or one that screws off.

In my photo theres a small hole in yellow. Might be able to hammer with a punch through there..

Thanks - any idea what that is for? I'll check mine now as I can see the gearbox looks the same / similar - but obviously I'm a little wary of whacking it out with a punch. I'll post back with a photo if I have the same.

boatbuilder

I would imagine the shaft has a keyway on it and it just pulls off - probably seized on the keyway. The problem is its hard to get a good purchase on the pulley to pull it without bending it out of shape. My experience with the crankshaft pulley was that if it was seized you just have to cut it off and buy a new pulley.

I remember I cut off the belt retainers at one point and rewelded them on afterwards.

I *may* have drilled that little hole myself, maybe so I could stick a screwdriver through the holes in the pulley so I could lock it and unscrew the nut. Its a strange kind of pulley if I remember correctly, - the two halves rotate independently of each other.

bamayang

I recently changed the drive belt on one of these. I don’t think that pulley has to come off at all, if I remember right there is a way of forcing the belt on/off around the putter guides.