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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

Cylinder drive belt - slips, cylinder sometimes stops

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Hi,

I have a Atco Balmoral 14s from 2002 which performed well until a couple of weeks. The Cylinder stopped rotating, more or less when mowing, and later during mowing completely. First I thought it was a worn out drive-belt, which I replaced.

But now a couple of weeks after replacing that it start slipping again, turning the belt, into dust really. Black rubber dust, that is.

So it seems that the pulley is not pulled hard enough onto the belt to tighten it around the wheels. I would like to fix this and tightened the cable that pulls the pulley. But it does not seem enough.

Pity I do not have a reference mower that works well, I do not know how tight the cable must be.

I will include some pictures of the situation with cable loose and pulled. 

Does someone have an idea what could be wrong?

Forums

wristpin Sat, 21/08/2021

With the belt removed are both cutting cylinder and the jockey pulley  free to rotate  - no binding bearings etc?

If the engagement cable pulls the jockey in via a tension spring that more or less controls the amount of tension on the belt. if you have a user manual it may it may suggest how far the engagement bar should be from the main handle bar when the cylinder starts to rotate when correctly adjusted.

Henno Thu, 26/08/2021

"With the belt removed are both cutting cylinder and the jockey pulley  free to rotate  - no binding bearings etc?"

Both rotate freelly.

"If the engagement cable pulls the jockey in via a tension spring that more or less controls the amount of tension on the belt. if you have a user manual it may it may suggest how far the engagement bar should be from the main handle bar when the cylinder starts to rotate when correctly adjusted."

I have a user manual but that does not contain any usefull info...

The upper pulley, the one that is on the driveshaft is a bit rusty inside. That might be the cause in rubbing down the belt?

To make it work I now have to adjust the cable ca. 1 cm out.