Drive Belt Replacement
Toro TimeCutter MAX 54”
This belt replacement was a simple but frustrating project, but mostly because of a lack of information.
I had just finished mowing the property a couple weeks ago, probably 3 or 4 hours on the machine, and was just running it back to the garage, to wash and store. As I was driving across the upper field towards the driveway, the drive wheels stopped moving. The engine sounded fine, throttle responded normally, mower PTO engaged like normal, and control arms articulated freely, but the machine wouldn’t move.
I was in a bad spot with a long way to go, so I got the mower ready to push. First I dropped the mowing deck and left it behind a tree in the upper yard. Then I opened the release valves on the drive units so they could move freely.
Once t
Summary
The first thing I did was get the mower up on blocks so I could get under it with enough room to work. I only have one bottle jack and a pile of scrap hardwood boards at the moment, so I won’t show what that process looked like, but while I looked like an idiot, I promise it was safe.
With the mower off the ground, I was able to see that the drive motor serpentine belt had jumped off a pulley and was all tangled up.
The belt routes pretty high up in the machine and runs through some pretty tight spots, so access is a challenge. Complicating things, this belt routing is not included in the operators manuals, so visualization is extra important.
To provide some access, I removed the rear protective sheet metal panel from the mower. It looks like the PTO axle can be removed, but I figured I’d try to work around it, and was able to without much issue.
Setup & Access
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