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Hi all, only posted once before 'mtd restoration' , all went well ,though could not get up steep hills ,put this down to belts slipping.This improved with belt dressing,Then started noticing not sucking up grass very well into bag, mowing particularly steep hilly top garden both hill problem and after spraying beltdressing on deck belts this seemed to highlight what i am convinced is clutch slipping this item ww.ebay.co.uk/itm/Blade-Brake-Clutch-Pulley-Fits-MTD-717-1787A-717-1787-753-06346/332246918741?hash=item4d5b75a655:g:xxwAAOSwE3BXFk3D , 753-06346 being the relevent pt no. Situation now is it cuts but not well at all looking at belts going quite slow and every now and again fires up to full song clutch is hot so got to be slipping. found a good youtube item on the clutch though in Polish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0m-E6Gp1o4 so intend to strip and see if can be fixed anyone had dealings of this nature any tips gratefully received, the ride on is MTD RH 135/105B 2003/4 great machine very happy with it any other information on this clutch is very scarce ie none so will post if i get anywhere with it, i am thinking i will have to somehow renew friction material of my own devising on plate should be interesting to say the least Great forum thanks for all the tips i have already read keep up the good work cheers

this is what she looks like now just the clutch to sort out,cheers

https://www.google.com/search?q=how...5i39j69i59.23815j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=HOW...9i57j69i59.29808j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Thanks for the reply Mark but my clutch is a good ole manual doohickey cheers

this youtube video shows the clutch in question anyone ever refurbed one of these or similar any tips cheers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0m-E6Gp1o4

Getting a bit lonely replying to my own posts most of the time, anyway in the interest of maybe helping someone else i will keep posting on developments. I have disassembled the clutch pully Noram same as on lots of machines with manual lever clutch although the dearth of youtube videos or any other information sources is perplexing, maybe the fact that these are 'no servicable parts inside' items costing CONSIDERABLE amounts of money explains that although knowing yanks and brits tendency to take everything apart and reverse engineer, them the lack of information is still puzzling. As you might expect being an ex mechanic i will take no notice whatsoever of claims of 'cannot be serviced etc'. First off i thought that there was once some friction material on clutch plate that had worn off ,but having nothing to compare with i simply did not know ,then studying the 3 youtube videos i have managed to find there is no friction material on any that i can see this maybe design for 'soft engagement of clutch' so have obtained gasket material kevlar, aramid fibres, glass fibre etc for harsh environments and high temps,which as yet i am not using but first trying a coating method on plate which having applied certainly grips better than before my first mix is bitumen , rubber roof seal and sand used to use similar on aircraft 'wing walk' paint very non slip.If indeed these units cannot be serviced i would think the two plates simply wear reducing engagement and making Noram tons of money ,well not without a fight buddy. Probably the trickiest part of using a lining (gasket material ) will be maintaining clearance of two plates as the driven one does not move a lot to engage however will keep the forum posted on my experiments and any success or lack of it, not tested yet at the bleeding edge of lawnmowing but you know i think it will work wish me luck cheers ( a tryer)

Hi Dave, this is DAVE replying to your thread again glad we have become good friends so nice to meet a like minded soul on the forum as no one else speaks to me sob!, anyway enough sarcasm, went out on test flight following application of non slip coating to clutch, cut brilliantly and filled grass catcher to the top ON FIRST RUN! then afraid started slipping again finally no drive to belt . But this is a good thing proves it can be made to drive the pulley all development and research stuff is like this . So next step is to line plate with cork as this is used on a plethora of systems as drive medium so onwards and upwards will continue to update as some people may find this useful cheers

Just one additional thing , cannot beleive the lack of information anywhere on these clutches no one ever seems to have worked on them, figured out a way to refurb etc very strange as youtubers into evey aspect of ride on mowers.

Well Dave I will answer your posts but in reality I can't see why I would bother.
We have already established that it is an EU only model and as such there is no information about it anywhere outside the EU
Nice photos of no use what so ever and being that 1/2 of them are out of focus I wonder why you bothered to upload them other than to prove you can not take a photo.
And one of the offending clutch would have been a bit more helpful.
When you said belt dressing you lost my attention and any urge to respond since using it on wrapped kevlar belts effectively destroys the belt and totally buggers the friction co-efficients.
IT is designed to be used with naked belts, to soften & break up glazed surfaces so the belt becomes sticky again. Exactly what you do not want with a clutching belt.

You say it both fails to throw the clippings up into the catcher AND DRIVE UP HILLS which means either both the blade & drive belts are too long or the entire stack pulley is worn out or the drive key in the pulley is missing / damaged.

I checked the part numbers of the clutch that I have never seen and while listed on several, Australian sites . all of them state 3 to 5 working day to despatch which means they do not hold the part in stock and have to order one from MTD.
THis indicates that the part is actually not available at all but listed to suck you in.

As all of the information about them and the only places that have the stack pulley are in the EU then there is the problem, an EU only model that non one else on the planet has seen.
OTOH the price does seem quite cheap.
We pay that down here for a plain stack pulley with no clutch.
Now if you want to post some photos of the actual clutch dissasembled you might get some reasonable answers , like fitting a loose friction plate from a 1950's motorcycle clutch.
But from what you have written, you may as well been using Gaelic because as we have not seen one it is next to impossible to visualize what you were talking about

Like so many of your countrymen Bert you must be a windup merchant 'photos out of focus',' don't know what clutch you are talking about' all posted previously comprehensive links to youtube showing clutch. I was not aware it was an arts site where atmospheric artistic sunset shots were the thing ,do us a favour mate don't come the raw prawn, and no all my belts are the right length and have not self destructed or blown up. i'm just a bloke who has not had one of these before and was looking for some tips , obviously mistakenly as this forum does not seem to be that place. I bow down to the all seeing oracle guru of the ride on lawn mower and retire from troubling you cheerio mate

I have never seen one of those clutches on a rider in USA. I have seen one on a DR Brush mower walk behind looks like the one in the video

Now Dave,
Has it gotten to 15 deg C up there and every one is suffering heat stress ?
Sit down, pour yourself a dram and have a little think.

You originally posted that your were resurecting the MTD and from that you also worked out that very few here had much in the way of experience with it as it is an EU specific model.
You posted some photos of the finished mower on that thread ( which I deliberately did not download ) and got some praise for your handiwork for which you can be rightfully proud.
This is fine and in context .

You then started new thread about the clutch and decided to attach 9 images that had absolutely no relevance to your current problem .
These were downloaded on the assumption that there would be relevant information in them.
What was found that most were out of focus to the point that the ID tag under the seat and even the model number decals were unable to be read .
Is it too much to expect that photos posted are clean clear & sharp ?
Not hard to do even in your workshop all you have to do is either hold the camera very steady or rest it on something solid.

So having wasted 2.5 Mb of my 10Gb monthly limit on useless photos are you surprised about the reply ?
You posted an ebay URL that was not linked so had to be cut & pasted to see what your were talking about, again making it that little bit harder for any one who wants to help you.
As for the You Tube videos, for the aforementioned reason they are never downloaded .
Particularly when most seem to be shot using a phone with a dirty lense at full arms length so they are sea sickening wobbly , out of focus contain little useful information and where ever possible have lots of wind or background noise so you can not hear the dialogue.
Where there is no dialogue you get assulted by the posters equally bad taste in music generally at speaker popping volume.

What would have been appreciated were photos of the actual problem, THE CLUTCH.
And by prefference , laid out in assembled order and each part individually.
Hopefully you would have realised that some effort was made to research your clutch ( Helping you ultimately helps me ) but there is no service parts listed anywhere for it, no aftermarket parts suppliers listed and no service /adjustment proceedures.
It seem to be a works or gets replaced item.

As for the rest of it, like WD 40 belt dressing sprays never ever fixed anything all they do is stop a squeaky belt from squeaking for long enough to allow the customer to rive out of the workshop without a fight.
Might be useful where belts pick up a lot of moisture over night but that is about it and when we were researching this model earlier on it was determined that the belts were wrapped kevlar mower belts in which case a belt dressing is destructive so you can expect the covers to start to shred & fall off in the very near future.

You stated that the mower drive belt slipped gong up hills which tends to indicate that the pulley could be worn past it's service limit in any case but without photos of it that is just speculation.
And I hate replacing complete assemblies as well.

As for the clutch itself I would expect it was fitted to comply with EU recycling laws as a std electric clutch is neither rebuildable nor economic to recycle.

Hopefully by now you have finished your two fingers of single malt and are feeling substantially better

Never knew there was such a thing as a ride on mower snob but man youv'e got them here handing down their perceived 'wisdom' without actually helping anybody , time to return to lurking as no point wasting breath on these specimens bye

Hello all i'm back just thought it might be helpful to someone to post a progress report on clutch repair this item pt no mtd 717 1787a which apparently according to lawn mower royalty 'Bert' no one in the sub continent has ever seen? just one of the most common manual clutches in existence. well since the wonderful 'help' from Bert , pictures out of focus seemed to be his main concern, and i would disintegrate my belt if i put dressing on it (did not happen), and no photo of the linked many times article in question, he assumed a supremely arrogant and dismissive attitude from the start , his main intent seeming to insult the pom, very small minded and sad, particularly since i have NZ and AUS born relatives in both great country's ah well takes all sorts. On to the matter in hand i have been happily mowing away for the past two years odd with my relined and repaired clutch main issue now is the longevity of the lining ,i am using cork 3mm and might experiment with other material for wear comparison, also probably hold the world record for clutch replacement time. hope it helps someone cheers

Just an aside very hard to get pulley tension spring 8" on mower deck nowadays, good value for money alternative is trampoline 8" spring just the job at good price hope it helps