GC 2410 belt change help

[daman1]

So long story short does the radiator have to come out to replace the fan belt?

 

[Racer4]

So long story short does the radiator have to come out to replace the fan belt?

It gave me more room to fish the belt around the crank pulley and around fan blades. Since the fan shroud plate can't be removed without removing the fan, I'll say yes.

 

[daman1]

Bummer, I guess one drawback of the rear-facing engine on these GC's

 

[Turfmaster6]

PS-- I disconnected the shaft at the small fan end -- once you pull one locking bolt & nut off at the fan, the splined shaft will slip off (last pic), then you can slip the shaft out of the other end to remove it.

Hi there.. hoping you can add the missing detail fo me. I removed the locking bolt from the shaft at the HST end of the shaft. It really felt like the bolt was screwed into the far side of the collar that goes over the splines. Got it out and tried to slide the shaft forward off the HST spline but I got literally zero budging. I grabbed the shaft with a good bite from vice grips and tried to hammer it forward off the spline. No progress. Repeated this in that box directly under the hydraulic steering pump (debris storage space. Still no motion. Not even a mm. What might be the trick? I see you mention a nut though I did not see a nut. Dear God I hope I don't have to position a nut on top of that collar when I reassemble. As a 40 year consulting design engineer, I'm in awe that Massey did not provide an access to this area from the top side of the deck.

 

[irvingj]

Sorry, that was me that said there was a nut on that driveshaft... but no, there isn't, just that bolt, if I'm getting the picture right here. Sounds like your shaft splines may be rusted/stuck there. Try some PB Blaster or similar, let it soak a few days....

Wow-- memories: "Great Town Greenfield, Why not Stop In?" Can't remember how many times I'd seen that old sign on I-91....

 

[Turfmaster6]

Sorry, that was me that said there was a nut on that driveshaft... but no, there isn't, just that bolt, if I'm getting the picture right here. Sounds like your shaft splines may be rusted/stuck there. Try some PB Blaster or similar, let it soak a few days....

Wow-- memories: "Great Town Greenfield, Why not Stop In?" Can't remember how many times I'd seen that old sign on I-91....

Thank you very sincerely for getting back to me on this. It's apart in my driveway and I'm anxious to get it done. I think given current challenges of moving that I've (proudly) earned enjoying life that I've crossed a certain event horizon for this adventure and it's now time to make create an access panel to do the rest of the work. I'll need to replace the fan as well since the tractor came with a broken off fan blade. Perfect spot for an electric fan, though I've had the replacement fan on the shelf for probably 10 years.

Appreciate your recommendation of PBlaster as well. I've gone through a few dozen cans of that in life but I'll share I've since moved on to a cheaper and more effective penetrant... a 50/50 mix of acetone and power steering fluid, reported in Machinist's Workshop in 2007. My native impatience usually adds oxygen and acetylene to the mixture post application to just part of the circumference of the outer perimeter to further enlist the assistance of physics. Final detail on that mixture.. the original article calls out ATF but the tester actually used power steering fluid (as reported elsewhere on the internet). I have had unusually good luck freeing up crevice and dissimilar metal corrosion in a marine environment (without fire) with that solution.

FYI, the reason this turned into a middle-of-snow/cold-season repair was I mistakenly believed a link belt would be a good solution to the ridiculous design of the Massey and in particular the requirement that a machine built (sorry all but it's true) for old guys to play with requires this sort effort for a common maintenance item, me competing effective for the most ancient and used up here (a spine with...... so far [he said optimistically]...... 2 broken necks and 2 broken backs on the books So I remind nobody of Gilles Gilbert rising and falling swiftly and gracefully as I work on this ill-designed thing. I talked to a guy I bumped into in Belchrtwn at DD about this before mine needed it and he said he paid... not making this up... almost $1k for the dealer to do it. So I was ready the moment my original belt finished destroying itself with a Fenner link belt. That turned out to be it's own exercise of building a ship in a bottle since, at least for me, it required assembly "inside out" and rotating/routing it in that space was less than joy-producing but I did make a tool that routed the belt down in the hole more easily (and thank you to the "designer" for placing the bold about which the alternator pivots such that the removal path is 1. invisible and 2. interrupted by the path of the belt). That belt lasted just under 8 hours after burning 4 hours to install it before it too severed... literally, the instant I completed pulling a rootball that went all the way to China over the preceding 2 days the new belt died. Turns out the kind of belt Massey put in is a thing called a cogged raw edge belt and the geometry of the sheaves is specific to that and importantly hostile to a belt made for a conventional geometry. A Fenner engineer ultimately sharing that their belts will not last in a cogged raw edge application. I could forgive going to a nearly proprietary belt type IF they actually thought about their customer and the system maintainability and didn't loop the stupid thing around the drive shaft. I know the visibility argument but I also know about the utter rarity of naive designers implementing considerations for other crucial considerations like competing harms. EVERYONE thinks they can design and whatever thought pops into their skull regardless of hours of experience (practitioner) or education/training (formalist) just powers ahead and thousand or millions of people are stuck with it. So... respectfully... (in case it ever changes anything in the universe by putting it out there)... if you don't design every day, don't design on ANY day. It is extraordinary how much third-party harm is visited upon people who didn't sign up to be a victim of someone pushing their "solution design" (machine, product, gvt/energy policy, etc) out the door despite their obvious unsuitability.

I have a pretty complete machine shop in my house and considered making new sheaves for standard belts but that'd be its own adventure given the shaft is concentric with the drive sheave and I think I'd prefer to not invest my dwindling pile of heart beats in other things.... like constantly welding up the GC's muffler. My heat treat abilities are currently too crude to bet on for such a high time investment project as well though I hope to change this year.

As too Greenfield.... call that one of my addresses for the internet, but not real far away. I did teach engineering (the good kind... electrical and computer not all that distant from there and literally a month ago my wife informed me that an old style restaurant we used to go to and very much enjoy had been closed for years (we should have gone more!). Hmm.... there is a sign where I live that were you to drive past with the setting sun in your eyes more than twice I'm sure you'd know of as the "home of" such and such. Pls excuse the obfuscation... I hold that every personally identifiable thing one says that touches the internet should be a lie. Though.... actually.... I'm totally into turf and did take every course one needs for a degree in agrostology.. aka turf grass management.. when I was a useless academic because engineering is so exciting!).

 

[Dmacleo]

My native impatience usually adds oxygen and acetylene to the mixture post application to just part of the circumference of the outer perimeter to further enlist the assistance of physics.

I never knew I was related to someone in MA.
fire NOT bad....

 

[Turfmaster6]

I never knew I was related to someone in MA.
fire NOT bad..

Very few brag about that sort of thing. At least I don't live in CA though.

 

[Racer4]

Well. Something isn't right. The belt I replaced above is already getting chewed up somehow. It's now only 3/8" wide and was super loose when I was readying the tractor for winter. All the pulleys seem to be lined up correctly. At least looking at it by eye. I mean it's just crank, water pump, alternator. And you can't really put too much tension on the belt.

Any ideas? There might be 40 hours on it since replacement. I mean, I've never experienced this kind of wear on any car I've ever owned. Maybe the upper alternator bracket is flexing under minimal belt tension? It seems thick enough that it shouldn't do that. Maybe I'll have to remove it and check for straightness. Possibly get a thicker one made?

 

[irvingj]

Wow, sorry to hear that! I just went out & looked at mine -- it doesn't seem there can be any variation with how the pulleys line up, with the exception of the alternator mounting. I mean, presumably the crankshaft and the water pump are not movable with respect to each other, right? I'd say either there's an alignment issue --- or perhaps the water pump is shot and/or stuck?

As an aside, I recently had to replace the fuel line that goes from the injection pump on the engine back to the (very) small electric fuel pump under the floor. In doing so, I removed the entire floor panel, which wasn't as bad as it sounds, actually. Removing the entire floor will give MUCH better access to all that stuff under there -- the HST driveshaft, the plastic fan, and all the debris that piles up in there.

Begin by removing the panels around the air intake under/around the instrument panel (as above), but then pop off the rubber floor mats (held in with plastic push-button things). Then remove the knobs that need to come off-- some just pull off, others are threaded. Once the rubber mats are off, you can see where the floor metal has enlarged holes so it can fit over stuff like the brake pedal and the diff lock. The floor panel itself is held in with a bunch of bolts...maybe 10 or so.

PS-- there's also a ground wire -- the one that comes right off the battery negative post!-- right next to the fuel pump that you'll probably want to clean up...

Good luck and keep us posted!