5 years with a Fastrak...Now a problem...Help please...

[pichneys]

At the end of my mow today, I started to smell burnt rubber and saw a little smoke. I immediately disengaged the blades, and the engine and driving are fine.

When I engaged the blades again, the same loud noise and vibration occurred, so I turned the mower off.

Thanks so much!

[mowerconsultant]

You need to remove the belt and inspect it, you have to inspect all the idler pulleys, check to see how the bearings are in them.
Spin the blade spindles and check the bearings in them also.
If all those turn out ok, check the v-grooves in the spindle pulleys to make sure there is not a piece of debris in them.
If those all are fine, leave the belt off, start the mower and engage the PTO, see if you hear any noise out of the normal.
It is likely one of the idler pulleys or a spindle bearing, possibly a PTO clutch failure.

Pj

[JimmyJ]

Check the grooves of the pullys very carefully. I live in an area with lots of pine cones and my Z has twice caught part of a pine cone and mashed it into the groove of the pully. I will vibrate like crazy and make a terrible noise while running.

[rooread]

I had the same thing happen with my mini z... lots of burning rubber and a horrible noise. I thought it was the spindle bearings but it was just a seized bearing in one of the guide pulleys. It's a single, common size bearing which SHOULD be easy to replace but the bearing is trapped inside the two halves of a metal pulley wheel which are welded together. If this is the case, you have 2 options:
1. pay top dollar (especially here in Australia) for a new pulley wheel
or
2. drill out the welds on the pulley wheel, replace the $5 bearing, use small bolts to stick the wheel back together using the holes you made when you drilled the welds out and never have to worry about this little issue again.

I love my Hustler but little things like this really get my goat.

[pichneys]

It turned out to be a broken spindle. That's fixed and it's working great again!