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I’ve got a Z254F that is eating through mandrel pulleys. I’ve checked the spindle and everything looks good, the splines on the spindle look good. Any other thoughts or ideas to try?

I let the shop take a look at it and they agreed everything looked good, they replaced the pulley and it stripped out after 3 hours of using it. I bet I’ve gone through 4 pulleys within the last 3 months.

Are you properly torquing it on installation? The nut needs to be torqued at to least the same torque as the blade mounting screw (bolt) which is 55 ft/lbs.

StarTech said:

Are you properly torquing it on installation? The nut needs to be torqued at to least the same torque as the blade mounting screw (bolt) which is 55 ft/lbs.

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I can’t say for certain cause I don’t have a torque wrench, but I have gotten that thing fairly tight from what I can tell. I would “assume” the shop would have torqued it correctly when they replaced it, but that pulley only lasted 3 hours before it stripped out again.

Most auto parts store will rent you (refundable when you return) a torque wrench.

KRoss480 said:

I can’t say for certain cause I don’t have a torque wrench, but I have gotten that thing fairly tight from what I can tell. I would “assume” the shop would have torqued it correctly when they replaced it, but that pulley only lasted 3 hours before it stripped out again.

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I wouldn't count on it if what I have seen out the local shops around here. They just hire bodies not brains to do the work.

StarTech said:

I wouldn't count on it if what I have seen out the local shops around here. They just hire bodies not brains to do the work.

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That’s kinda what I figured, I’ll try and get my hands on a torque wrench to make sure that’s correct.

If we assume that it was torqued correctly and it is still being stripped out, would the spindle be the next thing to look at?

I have also found people will over tighten the nut, then the next time they will have a nut which is starting to shear the threads. At this point it looks good, but will not tighten properly.

Also check your IPL to see if you pulley should have a spacer.
I have seen some in the shop where the spacer is omitted so the nut bottoms out on the threads without clamping the pulley tight enough
Also there are several variations of the pulley nuts
Without naming names ( for fear of self incrimination ) I know of one tech who has been caught out a couple of times because he used the wrong nuts or forgot the spring washer
, forgot the spacer or put one that should go under the pulley under the nut .
Thankfully he usually runs each mower for at least an hour before returning them because we all make mistakes

It is be note that Husqvarna does use thread distorting nuts and they do damage themselves on removal and sometimes damages the threads of the spindle shaft too

And Bert has a good point about the spacer washer as Husqvarna change the bearings in the spindle and eliminated the spacer washer but many of uses after market bearing and must install the spacer before installing the spindle pulley. It easy to tell which bearings are as newer one have a raised center that is the thickness of the spacer.

I’m seeing on the parts diagram that some have the spacer and some do not, I’m gonna have to check mine and see if it has the raised center or not then go from there.

Expensive little mistakes caused by me not laying out parts in the order they came off so they can go back in the same order
I have seen brand new mowers fitted with a mix of genuine & aftermarket spindles so not sure if the factory ran out of the usual part or the dealer replaced parts damaged in transit with generic parts but the one that sticks out was a ZTR that had 3 different spindles 2 with unified threads and one metric and all of them different sizes .

Now Bert don't you have a photographic memory?

It helps a lot to be able to move things around in your mind as I do. I can look at an object and mentality turn it and flip it around in my mind. Sure helps when you torn down for the first time a Kawasaki 3010 UTV and then 3 months pull the parts out of a box and reassembly it. Just got nearly done with it today and it came in May 9th. Now I got to get to front CV axles and the Honda rear differential from April 13th. The differential is in four 5 gallon buckets and it was the first tore one them down too.

Too bad I can't move the actual parts around with my mind.