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Hi, Have you tried to turn the blades by hand ( WITH THE MOTOR OFF ) I suspect there may be some transit packing that you may have missed. The blades should turn freely with the motor off and the blade engaged. There is a blade brake which stops the blades turning when the drive is disengaged which might need adjusting .
Hope this helps.
Sounds like you have a broken spring #148 on diagram, part #169022 that holds the idler arm back. Go to www.searspartsdirect.com and enter the model # of your mower and click on the mower deck to print drawing out, take your deck off the mower and see if all the springs are ok. If the pads are closed on the pulleys and the pads release when you turn the idler arm, the deck is ok. The problem will be a bad or disconnected safety switch that cuts the motor off if you try to ingage the mower. If the switch is disconnected under the seat it will kill the engine when the mower is engaged. I had this problem on my mower, just plug the wiring into this switch or replace it if it is bad.
I've had to do this at least 5 times. If you look under the body, there are two supports that carry the mower deck and lift and lower it. Each of these has a nut that holds up the deck and the nut is on a stud that goes up and down when you raise or lower the lever. Put the deck in the middle of it's range, around #3, make sure the key is off, move your blades so they are on the right and left edge of the deck.
Get yourself a device to measure blade to ground height, I have a block of wood that is 3 inches long. Make sure your floor or ground is level and tires are properly pumped up. Then raise or lower the adjustment nuts until both sides are equal height.
First check to make sure you can turn each blade by hand, with the mower off. If neither blade spindle is frozen remove the deck and make sure all the pulleys move freely and function like they should. The cable should have been operating a spring loaded pulley arm that applied tension to the deck belt to make the blades function. Some times build up with block that from moving or rust will make it stick.
Hi,
When the mower is off and the clutch is disengaged you should not be able to physically turn the blade(s) if you can then you need to adjust the blade brake (look on the mower deck and you should see what appears to be a brake pad). Your owners manual will show you how to adjust. If you need a copy of the owners manual then I would suggest going to www.managemyhome.com and downloading a free copy of the manual for your mower (Need model number which starts is located under the seat).
Good luck!
Hi Jeff, If you look at the deck, one or more of those pulleys is a tensioner, It pushes against the belt to tighten it, The rest of the pulleys can be identified by the fact that they only have a bolt through the middle, whereas the tensioner is mounted on an adjustable arm with a slot to allow adjustment. It should also be the only one that the belt doesn't go around the pully it just pushes on one side.If the tensioner arm is all the way to the end of the slot, the belt is streched and will need replaced but sounds like it may have come loose. Some of these decks also have a spring on the tensioner arm and those come off from a stick or other debris. Check it out and if you have a problem let me know and I will try to come up with a diagram. If your mower is that new there should be a belt diagram on the deck. i will need a model number of the deck or mower for that. Good luck!
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