I have a Craftsman riding lawnmower that has the type of clutch that operates by releasing tension on the drive belt via a moving pulley when the pedal is pushed in. I recently performed some maintenance on this mower by replacing the drive belt and the worn-out moving and stationary pulleys. Ever since I have done this, however, the transmission (manual 6-speed) is frequently very difficult to shift. Sometimes to get it to go into reverse, I have to get the mower rolling forward while shifting, and sometimes have to get it rolling backward to shft into forward. When it gets really stuck, I have to turn the mower off, and then it shifts easily. When looking under the mower, I can see that when the clutch pedal is pushed in, the pulley on top of the transmission is still rotating at a pretty good clip. Shouldn't that pulley come to a near stop or at least a slow rotation when the clutch is in? When I changed the belt, I used a PIX belt that was supposed to be the correct one for my mower. I'm wondering now if maybe that belt was too small - that maybe I should have used an OEM belt. It seems like there is too much tension in this belt - what do you'all think?
Problems shifting Craftsman riding mower
- Thread starter paejkirk
- Start date
There may be a way to adjust the pedal travel, so it will disengage the belt. that is one of the reason the experts on here always talk about OEM or OEM equivalent belts, since Just because the cross reference says the belt is 5/8 width doesn't mean that the OEM belt is 5/8 width.
