IS700z Busting Belts Right & Left

[bertsmobile1]

We are a church and have had the exact same thing with the IS700Z. The dealer has brought it back to the shop twice, the Ferris rep has come out and said there was nothing we were doing wrong. We have been through 6 belts in 120 hours of operation.

I can understand the belt popping off the pullies from debris getting onto the deck but the belts are snapping or tearing with no rub marks on them.

We are extremely frustrated. The dealer is out of suggestions and we are at the stage of talking to the Ferris rep about a full refund.

if anyone has found a solution I would love to hear it.

Belts only snap cleanly if an extreme shock load is applied and the belt is too tight and can not slip on the pulleys.
Generally the big belts on mowers with electric clutches are plain belts which when they get hot , get sticky and thus do not slip very well.
If the belts that are breaking are plain, not wrapped then you can try fitting a wrapped belt.
You can also go to a kevlar fiber belt but in sizes over 100 inches wrapped kevlar reinforced belts become very expensive .

you can go to the Gates belt locator and type in the part number.
If Gates make a similar belt it will appear and then if you click on the belt number you will get the belt dimensions so you can then find replacement belts.


In the mean time back off the belt tension a bit and have a good look at the blades for evidence of striking hard things like gutters when moving from car parks to grassed areas.

Forun choked when I tried to post the url so google "Gates belt interchange" and you should be able to find the page
Or try putting the "w" in front of this .gates.com/all-search-tools/automotive-interchange-search-results

 

[Lawnboy18]

I don't know if this can help, but I was talking about this with a mower mechanic. His dad sells Ferris mowers. He was mentionning that it was in relation with a spring tension. Ferris has it all wrong the way it needs to be adjusted. Just wanted to throw this info onto here. It could help.

 

[mountaincut]

Hopefully you are not still having problems with your Ferris, but if you are listen to this.

I bought an Evolution several years ago and went through two new deck belts after two cuts with each belt (2 1/2 acres). I took the mower to a Ferris dealer for service and their initial diagnosis was something similar to what I read mentioned above. They installed another belt only to have the same problem occur yet again. I loaded up the mower took it back and after replacing bearings and spindles the problem was solved and that was two years ago.

So far I love the mower and keep my fingers crossed that the problem does not occur again, now that it is our of warranty. I would suggest making sure that your belt tension has been properly adjusted to their spec and that you know how to measure the tensioning spring to ensure that everything is correct.

Ferris recommends that the spindles are greased and the bearings oiled (sealed bearings how are you to oil them?) and I am forever checking the tension. Surprisingly my tension setting was 6 1/2" before Ferris was acquired by Briggs, now it is 7" and things are still working alright (fingers still crossed) just finished the first cut of 2016.

 

[Switchback]

At 9.9 hours on my IS700Z the mower belt jumped off yesterday. I just finished putting in back on and I found a small piece of pine cone stuck in the groove of the back pulley. Does Ferris have any kind of add on kit or anything to help keep this kind of stuff away from the pulleys? Thanks for any advice.

I just bought my 700Z and my dealer told me that I might want to remove the "striper" that comes on the bottom rear of the deck if you have things like sweet gum balls or pine cones because it ha a tendency to flip them up on the deck.

 

[DougOperations]

Well we had the mower sent back to the manufacturer, they ran it over "rough terrain" for 10 hours and never had an issue. They calibrated everything and sent it back. 2 hours of mowing on our property and the belt broke again. I am sure it is pine cones or sweet gum balls but this is crazy. We are buying the strongest, most expensive belts they make and it still doesn't help. I think the ferris design is flawed for this kind of mowing. I had a gravely in the same area and never had an issue.

 

[Wisconsin]

Our nonprofit wildlife sanctuary bought a new Ferris IS700z last summer to replace several hand-me-downs that we'd been struggling to keep running the previous summer. It was the biggest expense single expense we've taken on in years and we were really excited to get it. Our excitement quickly turned to frustration when our drive belt broke with less than 3 hours on the machine. Within a week the deck belt had also broken. This machine is less than a year old and we have now replaced the drive belt 2x and the deck belt 4x. WTH is going on? The dealer took it back to the shop last month to check all the pulleys for burrs and found nothing. Another dealer suggested we check to make sure the engine is not loose - it's on hard as a rock. The dealer who sold it to us believes that sweetgum balls and pine cones are getting caught under the belts causing them to break - but this much? Can anyone else recommend any fixes. We are about $600 in on maintenance for this thing in the first year for belts alone. Not very happy with Ferris right now.

Thank you!

I had this happen to the mower I bought this spring. Without seeing any of your mowers I'll tell you to remove your striper kit. It "flicks" debris up into the belts and causes them to break. My dealer knew right away what happened and they gave me the belt for free. I would go back to your dealer and mention the striper kit and get your money back.