I know Fish. It's sad but this rookie lawnmower mechanic fell victim to assuming he knew what was wrong, but today I proved once and for all that there's ............... not a dang thing wrong with that variable drive pulley.
Every since I started this project I've tried to make that pulley be broke for some reason and missed a couple of obvious things that would have told me differently. While taking the belts off the VD pulley I discovered that the arm the tension/idler puller is mounted on was frozen and locked in place. This is why the tractor wouldn't move under power .... the belt was loose on the VD pulley. I guess I should have noticed this before, but dumb ***** me was too busy trying to pin the blame on the VD Pulley. Duh.
Anyway, I freed up, cleaned and lubed the pivot point, put the belts back on and drove the tractor around the pasture. Works fine. Lesson learned.
The picture shows the idler pulley and the pivot point.
Now that it will move, I need to do some engine work on it. The engine runs but not real well. I know (here we go again) the carb. is probably the main problem. I will tear it down for cleaning and inspection but I don't know how much farther I should go with the engine. I was thinking about pulling the heads and checking the valves but is that really necessary if the carb. straightens out the engine?
Your opinion would be appreciated.