Pulley Problem

[StarTech]

After expressing interest in doing business with Stens early this Spring via the Internet, a representative called me. Said he would be in my area and come by my shop. No call and no show and never heard back from them. Also, they were not at the Equipment Expo this year. Business must be good for Stens…

Sometimes it takes you doing follow-ups. It took me several years just to get into Gardner but with RBI it took a very short time. What is a major problem was that had a very lazy local salesman. He only lived 20 miles from me and never came out. It took firing him and hiring a new salesman before I got signed up. They are very slow to correct problems too. A couple years ago Gardner started charging 2.5% for CC use but had ACH transfers supposedly available. It took 7 months to get switch over to where I send a check after every purchase. They never setup Codis to do ACH transfers. What worst is now I have a Space Cadet for a salesperson. She calls and have no idea of what she is calling about. But RBI has Codis setup and payments get done in three days.

One of the problems is turnover of sales staff. In the last ten years of being with Stens I have been thru six salespersons and only one ever visited the shop.

I only so far this year purchased about $23,000 in parts but none the vendors have over $4758 in sales. You probably not surprise how small purchases from different vendors quickly add up. Plus every year is different. So purchases from Gardner are way down but RBI is way up. Stens is down and Rotary is up.

Here is some of the top vendors here. And this don't include shipping charges.

 

[Tiger Small Engine]

Sometimes it takes you doing follow-ups. It took me several years just to get into Gardner but with RBI it took a very short time. What is a major problem was that had a very lazy local salesman. He only lived 20 miles from me and never came out. It took firing him and hiring a new salesman before I got signed up. They are very slow to correct problems too. A couple years ago Gardner started charging 2.5% for CC use but had ACH transfers supposedly available. It took 7 months to get switch over to where I send a check after every purchase. They never setup Codis to do ACH transfers. What worst is now I have a Space Cadet for a salesperson. She calls and have no idea of what she is calling about. But RBI has Codis setup and payments get done in three days.

One of the problems is turnover of sales staff. In the last ten years of being with Stens I have been thru six salespersons and only one ever visited the shop.

I only so far this year purchased about $23,000 in parts but none the vendors have over $4758 in sales. You probably not surprise how small purchases from different vendors quickly add up. Plus every year is different. So purchases from Gardner are way down but RBI is way up. Stens is down and Rotary is up.

Here is some of the top vendors here. And this don't include shipping charges.
View attachment 67190

Star Tech-
Thanks for your reply. I only do about $2500 to $3500 per year in parts buying. If I were in a position right now where I was getting crappy service, late deliveries, mis-picked orders, billing issues, prices too high, then I would be chomping at the bit for help with a new parts vendor. As it stands, none of the issues are happening.
I used to be in outside sales in the 90’s and covered 3/4 of Missouri, and 1/2 of Arkansas. I was a hustler and dealers appreciated seeing me 4 to 6 weeks. Nothing upsets me more than complaining, complacent, lazy workers. It seems that a potential customer shouldn’t have to beg to do business with a company. The company should hustle for the customer’s business. Anyway, it will all shake out in the future. I am going to do some more planning over the winter, getting more organized, shop clean up, vendors, etc.

 

[StarTech]

You are lucky then as I have been dealing just that all year long here.

Back in the early 2010's companies were willing to have small companies like mine buying from them. Now the same companies are raising the minimum annual purchases to where I have to switch vendors. A&I that I was with for nearly 13 yrs to start demanding a 2K annual minimum purchase that just came off a restriction I placed them on because of unresolved problems. I was having to bring back in stock their products after I had already replaced them from Stens products. I was already had brought $200 in Briggs parts after having them on a six month suspension when they sent me three threatening emails. With Briggs dying off here I figured I could just buy the parts elsewhere. That was last year. Normally I was buying nearly 3K from them when they were Sunbelt Outdoors. Same problem with Power Distributors they dump me because A&I was giving me a better discount. So I now not selling new engines beside $200 to ship an small engine is too much.

Every year my needs change around based on what is coming into the shop. The last couple years it has heavy with large ZTRs with Kawasaki engines. Who knows what the coming year will bring in. At least next June I be going on SS for a stable income so I will start selling down my inventory to get ready to close the business. Just plain tire of all the hassles dealing with parts procurement.

And yes I got start the annual shop cleaning and inventory soon too. Dreading the inventory part especially while keeping the shop open. Just over 19.5K in parts to count.

 

[Tornadoman]

LOOK CLOSELY>> The rivets did not come loose. The bottom pulley half cracked apart. I have seen this. It does happen, but usually when very old. Could the belt tension have been too tight? Pulleys out of alignment? Or just a defective part?

 

[Mattmotors]

It happens. I also had a pulley separate on my gt3000 a few years ago. it was the original pulley.

 

[StarTech]

Never seen to fail this way; unless, defective metal was used. With after market being sold by fly by night operators anything is possible. I have in the past seen one double stack pulley to come apart because the stop welds failed. That is the only one I seen in 14+ yrs of working on mowers.

But anything is possible especially when they tell you it is impossible. When I repairing electronic calculator I came across a batch where they were adding wrong. I call tecj support and they it was impossible but I proved them wrong by simply giving them the set of test numbers. Kinda wished I didn't as I to change over 100 cpu chips.

 

[LMPPLUS]

I rebuilt the mower deck on my Craftsman GT3000 tractor last spring. After grinding off the rust, epoxying the underside and painting it, I replaced several pulleys, belts, and one of the bearing/blade holder assemblies. Yesterday while mowing, I heard a loud squeal followed by smoke and burning rubber. Pulled it into the garage, and this AM I pulled the deck. The drive belt for the deck was twisted and frayed.

The cause was separation of the top and bottom halves of one of the new replacement pulleys. (See Picture). I bought all of my parts from eBay, since Sears is pretty much gone and has only a few parts available for shipping sometime in this century. Despite paying a bit more for "OEM" parts I have to wonder if the parts I bought really are OEM. After all, the original pulleys and belts on this tractor only lasted 20 odd years. (When I rebuilt the deck, one of the pulleys (not this one) had similarly failed, but it did not eat the belt.)

Is this a common problem? Can I expect a new pulley to also bite the dust in a matter of months? I mow about 3/4 acre every other week during the growing season. The tractor usually logs fewer than 50 hours a year - probably a lot closer to 20 or 30. Note that in the picture I've not started loosening the retaining nut. What you see is what I saw when I yanked the deck.

 

[LMPPLUS]

Many of the steel pulleys are American made sold by both OEM and aftermarket suppliers, not all but many, but generally a bearing will fail long before the pulley will split.

 

[RevB]

I rebuilt the mower deck on my Craftsman GT3000 tractor last spring. After grinding off the rust, epoxying the underside and painting it, I replaced several pulleys, belts, and one of the bearing/blade holder assemblies. Yesterday while mowing, I heard a loud squeal followed by smoke and burning rubber. Pulled it into the garage, and this AM I pulled the deck. The drive belt for the deck was twisted and frayed.

The cause was separation of the top and bottom halves of one of the new replacement pulleys. (See Picture). I bought all of my parts from eBay, since Sears is pretty much gone and has only a few parts available for shipping sometime in this century. Despite paying a bit more for "OEM" parts I have to wonder if the parts I bought really are OEM. After all, the original pulleys and belts on this tractor only lasted 20 odd years. (When I rebuilt the deck, one of the pulleys (not this one) had similarly failed, but it did not eat the belt.)

Is this a common problem? Can I expect a new pulley to also bite the dust in a matter of months? I mow about 3/4 acre every other week during the growing season. The tractor usually logs fewer than 50 hours a year - probably a lot closer to 20 or 30. Note that in the picture I've not started loosening the retaining nut. What you see is what I saw when I yanked the deck.

Nothing wrong with the old pulley . Betcha you can find someone to spot weld it back. Failing a spot weld, there is always the rosette method. Just drill holes through one of the halves and then holes through the other half but offset from the first set. Then any competent welder ( sometimes even incompetent ones) can just weld in rosettes through each hole to bond the assembly. MIG, rod (GMAW or MAW), TIG or gas can all be used. Cheaper and better than new.

Had an issue with clip nuts used to secure items to a seam. Called the company and asked if they made their own. They did and told them to crank up the amperage on the "spot" welder because half of them had the "welded" nut fall off the clip. They called back a couple hours later and said, yup...someone had dialed back the amperage on one of the machines so they sent a bag of new stock gratis.....

 

[clubairth]

It's a pulley?
Just replace it and move on.
.
.
.