What's concerning, is that over 54,000 people have watched a video about a John Deere x300 mower belt breaking prematurely. Obviously this is a very common issue that John Deere has refused to acknowledge. Mine kept breaking as well, and when I called the John Deere dealer (where I bought it) the guy said "... not sure. Did you put the belt on right?" If I could've punched him through the phone, I would have. No more John Deere products for me. Thanks for making this video!
Great diagnostic and repair. To technical for a John Deere tech to figure out at what $ 100.00 dollars an hour. That should be a factory recall for sure.. Great job buddy.
After installing new spindles, idler pulley (small one) and belt on my 2008 X300 42" deck I was frustrated to see the starboard side bolt just a mere centimeter from the belt. Figuring this was going to be a problem I searched UA-cam for help and found this video. You sir, did a nice job with the presentation and the welding solution - - but I am VERY happy to have read many of the comments. On the outside of the U-channel brace attached to the deck, it looked as if there had been a washer attached but it is simply marks left by the lift arm when installed properly to the far OUTSIDE of the brace, NOT within the inner channel as it intuitively seems to. I guarantee most people put the downward arm inside the channel like I did. By moving the lift arms to the outside of the brackets the belt easy clears the bolt and the lift works perfectly. Thanks to all who have input. On a side note, if you change out the old style spindles with the grease zerk on the side to the newer spindle (zerk on the top of the shaft), you WILL NEED TO BUY the (8) nuts for the attachment bolts that are welded to the spindles (4 each), as well as new nuts and washers for the blades as the threaded shaft is much bigger in diameter than the old style spindles. I had to make multiple trips to the JD dealer when I realized these parts were needed. WHY John Deere sells these spindles without nuts or the larger washer and nut for the shaft is beyond me. I'd gladly have paid a couple extra bucks for the essential hardware in lieu of 2 extra trips.
In 2007 I purchased a X500 ran perfectly till last Sept. when I thought all new belts and blades would make it go 23 more, so off the the JD dealer it went. Mowed twice and it threw a belt. Had thrown a belt every time I mow. Today I purchased new belts and am going to put them on. I noticed that the tension rod for pulley in front of the double pulled had a flat worn spot on top like it was rubbing against the double pully. I had not had the 48" mower deck off until it came back from the JD dealer.
Thanks for posting this. Had the same issue with my John Deere X300 and 42" deck. JD has apparently released a bulletin which states to cut off the lower 1/2" of the bolt to address this issue. Very annoying. I've gone through several belts and lots of trial and error to diagnose this. Your video helped. I cut the lower 1/2" off my bolt and then filed it down as smoothly as I could. Shall see if it holds, but so far so good.
@@bdubnit No, for me it ended up being the PTO clutch. The clutch still worked, however it was engaging too abruptly and snapping the belt. A new clutch fixed it and made a big difference.
I am a John Deere technician. Good work, you have solved a very common problem! Our solution (From DTAC) is to cut the end of the bolt off, it is much easier than this. Once it is adjusted, they rarely need to be adjusted again, and the deck tends to move downward as things wear anyway.
I did same thing but still eating 2-3 belts out of approximately 10 hours running. Also the few seconds testing on flat area with no load or actually cutting grass is completely insufficient validation for the repair
Had broken probably 6- 8 belts in a matter of months, turns out it was the bolt. I did not do any welding though, all I did was reverse the orientation of the bolt housing and bolt so the bolt was on the outside, of course it's kind of tight and not meant to be like that but it has worked just fine. The welding fix is a better one but for someone not mechanical or who doesn't weld my non-welded fix has worked for 3-4 years now. No more broken belts.
Thank You !!!!!!!!!!!! I have also had numerous belts break on my x300.....just installed a new belt and thought I would check the belt orientation before running it and noticed the exact same "bolt problem"....with vibration and deck movement side to side, it's no wonder this has been an issue. I don't have a welder, but I do have a grinder 🙂
Found this same problem on an X350. In this case the bolt was rubbing on the bottom loopo of that belt, and the top was fine, or at least had sufficient clearance it wasn't a problem. Our solution was to simple cut the bolt short so that it didn't continue to contact the belt. There was still sufficient thread left to adjust and level the deck. Hope we don't run into problems with the top loop in the future.
I now own one of these very badly designed mowers. At least one belt a year, if it’s not a factory belt, order two. A 146” belt is absolutely ridiculous. Have never owned a mower that required as many belts, especially at the cost of this mower. Will be my only one. One more factory belt, and I’m selling this thing. I have had much less expensive mowers that never needed a belt.
Thank you for sharing this. I have always thought a belt a year is too much wear, especially at $70 a pop. The drive belt is 8 years old and still looks good. I will perform this mod and hopefully that will stop the premature belt wear. BTW, I looked at my rear right deck hanger and the threads on the bottom have been eaten into 1/4 way through, presumably with belt slap. Not a good design at all. I've seen this every belt change, but it didn't dawn on me to redesign it for remedy. Thanks again and God bless for sharing.
Want to thank you for posting this video. I’m on my second belt this year so far (it’s only June) and I went through three belts last year. Had the dealer look at it last year and was told a bushing and pulley was to blame. I also believe the culprit to be the threaded bolts as described, so today I cut the threads off, about a half inch. Hope this will last… they ain’t cheap.
The pulley and bushing are the usual culprit, I had someone leave a comment that he kept breaking belts until he put a 5/8 belt on and hasn't broke it since. I believe it's a bad deck routing set up. It's the only deck that I've seen like that, where the pulleys sit at angles and the belt criss-cross. Hope yours is good now.
@@JLafix Thanks for your reply. Worked fine today, hope it stays positive. With 657 hrs on the Deere, maybe I shouldn’t complain about putting a few dollars into it. Just that those belts sure are expensive, and not fun to replace.
In my experience, the most common reason for belts breaking, if they are not fraying, is that the clutch needs to be replaced. If the belts are snapping in one place each time, it is probably because the clutch is fully re-engaging instantly with no slippage causing the belt to be under instantaneous load resulting in a catastrophic failure. The clutch mechanism is not cheap, a couple hundred bucks, but it is easily replaced and your problem is solved in most cases.
For some reason its just this model or models with the exact kind of belt routing . There has been a couple people commenting that they replaced clutch and still were breaking belts.
I also replaced clutches and am still snapping belts. The notion that belt seam is catching on poorly designed bolt has some validity but mine never broke on seam but they break even after cutting bolt shorter & no interference from bolt. Problem remains
New John Deere E170 and less than 100 hours in, belt already broken. No visible cuts on the belt, belt looks brand spanking new, just broken from one end to the other EXACTLY like this belt shown 6:00. I told my ignorant ass parents to never buy a John Deere, the company purposely creates shitty products to feed their service department. Thanks for the information, great stuff.
Pretty random coincidence this recommend video popped up on my feed. I went through two deck belts mowing my yard this previous Sunday. I will have to check to see if the belt is in a position to rub against the bolt. I did use WD-40 to loosen the concave spindle, so I hope the spray did not degrade the quality of the belt as well.
@@maj3stikq122 No, I still have issues with my deck belt snapping. I can’t pinpoint the exact location where the belt is getting more friction causing it to break. I notice this tends to happen more when I drive over the tree roots in the yard.
Thanks! I have a 2007 LA120 42inch John Deere and I have broken 4 belts in the past year. Paid the dealer $500 to replace some parts on the deck, but still broke a belt after repairs. I'm going to try your solution, since the belts all look like the broke the same way- no shredding, just looked snapped.
I've had some others comment that they had the same problem with the belts just snapping and their solution was pulley alignment. I'm not sure what's misaligned but they said it fix their problem
I'll need to try that because I checked, and the hanger bolts are already on the outside. What seems to happen each time before it snaps is the belt becomes loose and I have to reattach it to the main crank under the engine.
I had another person look at the deck and they said the pulley bracket bolt was not welded properly. Looks like in this video, John Deere upgraded the pulley bracket with an extra belt guide. ua-cam.com/video/nfmufOGp3T0/v-deo.html
Seems like the older models have a fixed bolt & bracket which the idler pulley is mounted to. The bolt eventually wears and breaks and the pulley comes off. Here is a $4 fix... :) ua-cam.com/video/m_GcuK0hhfM/v-deo.html
1. There is an adjustment in the front, that moves the whole deck forward,. it is a rod in front of the deck. 2. there is too much resistance on the belt at start up,(because it was pulled apart.) Try checking the belts resistance, by grabbing the belt and spinning the blades before you stat the machine. make sure it spins freely. Most of my breaks at start up, was when the spindles were a little stiff.
@@bubblerings My X300, 42" deck spindles have sealed bearings, so greasing them won't help. The next time they need replaced, I'm going to use non-sealed bearings and grease them as needed. We'll see if that helps. Right now, with 240 hrs on my deck and 8 years of use, I only replaced the spindles once. But they are getting quite noisy again.
@@pearltiger2003I own a X300 also and the grease does get into the sealed bearings BUT you need 75 to 80 pumps and you will eventually see grease come through the top and bottom of the spindle. There’s a youtube video where a guy used a different color grease to prove it. He loaded 80 pumps and removed the bearing and seal cover and the different color grease was inside the bearing.
There were a couple of things I found that caused the belt to shred and jump off the spindles. First was the fact that the mower deck hanger on the right side was too close to the belt. The bolt and hook assembly hangs down and as you use the deck it scraps on the belt and eventually frays the belt to shreds. I took the lift hanger off, removed the slide piece, and reversed it on the lift hanger so that the bolt and nut part hangs away from the belt. That stopped the fraying. This is overkill. This is a simple fix. The second thing was the front leveling bolts. I found them off level. Meaning that the two bolts were not equal in adjustment. They should be one (1) thread visible on both sides. I have had no issues since these adjustments were made.
I bought a X300 from JD in 2009 and the belt wore out in 2022 and this is when I replaced it. I have 5/8” exposed threads showing on the bottom after leveling the deck.
Talk to Deere tech told me a lot of people also scallop the bottom of deck by mowing to close to ground on uneven lawns.Just 42 in deck stripped 6 hundred
Dealing with the same issue. Same mower. Im on 6 belts this year and 3 belts last year. I have changed belts, parts, aligned it, taken it to a tractor/mower mechanic. Just broke another today.
The two pulleys on the rear of the deck sometimes the holes on a deck itself gets wowed out to an oval shape. Adding washers to both sides seem to solve the issue in one case I came across
My dealer come up with the same lame excuse for the belt breaking, he said the the reason was because the RPM's was not fast enough when engaging the PTO. That was on a 2011JD X300. Just bought a 2018 X350 and it has not broke the belt as of yet. So don't know if they fixed the problem but it has 4 years of warranty so they will have to keep replacing the belt if not. If it wasn't under warranty I would do the same changes that you did. Thanks for sharing your mod on the X300.
Well I’m glad to see this video cause I’m having the same problem. But, did his fix last ??? My John Deere belt lasted 5 or 6 years before I changed to a Napa belt, then it started breaking. I’m gonna try another Napa belt and take a close look at this bolt tolerance. Thanks for the video.
my problem on X300 with 42 inch deck is that I bent the transfer bar out on the end where the smaller of the two rear idler pullleys mounts. this bend caused that small flat back pulley to run cocked and the belt wore itself out on the flange of that flat back pulley. too long a bold elsewhere on the deck had nothing to do with my problem. my bent bar was caused by my own laziness and impatience. When replacing the belt one time I put a pipe over the top of the belt keeper and bent it back away from the idler pulley to let the new belt drop down between the pulley and the belt keeper. should have used a 15 mm socket to remove (or at least loosen) the pulley to make room for it to drop down.
Mine is a 2011 X-300 & all of a sudden, I'm going through belts too. So after watching this, I went out & checked mine & my LH side has this clearance issue (oddly - this video shows the RH side as the problem). I put a new belt on a week ago & after one cutting, the new one is starting to fray - right on the inboard of the belt that goes into the V-channels, right where this bolt was very near it - it was starting to make noise like my other new belt did just before it let go. On the 2011, the bolt that drops down from my frame is kind of loose - on a swivel type of connection, so I removed the nut from the bottom & simply flipped-around the bottom bracket & re-assembled. Now I have all kinds of clearance there. Can't wait to cut the lawn in a few days to see if this solved the issue. BUT, now I'm wondering how the OE belt lasted 8 years???
It also may be a pulley or two that has become oblong where the bolt hole goes through or the actual deck mounting point has been compromised with worn-down metal, allowing the misalignment of pulleys. The most likely cause from breaking belts clean is misaligned pulleys. But if your belt is shredding it could be from misaligned pulleys and or something impeding the path of the belt. I have had also at least two people comment that once their PTO clutch was replaced the breaking belt issue went away.
x350. Not only does the adjustment screw rub up against the belt it is also sitting at an angle while the other is almost vertical. Tried adjusting screws to no avail. Will see if I can stick it to the outside or just cut it with an angle grinder... very disappointing.
I was working on my X300 deck last night and also noticed how close the belt seems to come to that height adjustment bolt. I haven't blown any belts yet, but it definitely raised some concern when I saw it.
Jake P this mower has not come back to me for a blown belt but keep in mind there are other things that can break a belt like misaligned pulleys and or belt too tight. ETC. Good luck with your fix...
If it is breaking clean snap then it is most likely the pulleys are out of alignment don't know if you saw the last part of this video but there's a follow-up video that might help you out
Wow dude that's unbelievable...if its new it should have a warranty...but seriously wtf...i am a big JD fan but I would see if they could give you another hopefully thinking everything would be fine. Otherwise something must be missing or misaligned. Sorry for your trouble
Store Warranty is only 30 days. I didn't get the extended warranty. Im a week too late... I guess the e130 model is made like that. With no adjustable tensioner.
I had similar problem. After 8 years with original belt thought it was time to replace. That's when the problems started. After 2 1/2 years and five belts later John Deere finally resolved problem by replacing pto clutch. Problem solved!!
You are the 2nd person that has said that after replacing original belt is when problems started and he too replaced pro. Maybe its possible when the friction plates in the clutch get worn they jerk the belt too abruptly.
This is good thank for posting The problem with my deck belt is when Im cutting long grass with my Lawn Tractor. They are realy not design to cut long grass. They are realy design just to cut lawns. For long tall grass I found I need a tractor with a slasher on the back of it .But I haven got a slasher All I have is my MTD Rover 38" Lawn Tractor. But I found a way to cut long tall grass with out righting my Deck belt. In the pass I have found that if Im not careful enough I can easily do major damage to the deck belt. or even the blades. Most lawn tractor have a powerful engines they will not stop no mater what. And though it takes a lot to jam up and stop the blades spinning. it do's happen But always if the blades do jam up in long grass it will happen so fast that the powerful engine I have in my lawn tractor will just keep on turning. Burning out a huge chunk of the deck belt . The hint of this happening will be, that it will produces a huge amount of smoke, from under the hood. And most times it will right off the deck belt. Though if it doesn't brake, most time the deck belt will still work, But a deck belt is balance part of the lawn tracker . When I have burn out a deck belt I notice that it will take a huge chunk out of it . The belt will then be out of balance. It if do's not brake though I can still use it But it be out of balance and it will shake the hell out of the deck.
A V belt is not designed to bend back on itself.......a serpentine belt is..............Here is a design flaw in this system...........the longer a belt is and the greater distance between bend points, the worse the situation gets. A mad person designed this arrangement. As the Irish say.....You can nae polish a turd!! Stavros
The local John Deere dealer went out of business in our city two months ago. This particular dealer still has about 17 other locations statewide. My business should see an increase as a result of them closing. They sold Stihl products also. Have not been impressed with what I have seen and heard about this an John Deere dealer. As for them not being able to diagnose and repair this factory flaw over a course of nine years on a belt repeatedly breaking. Just pitiful.
ive been looking on youtube for removing john deere decks & even I can see that the hooking hang bolt should be on the outside, not inside the frame- also looks like the coter pins were rigged too. no way they got this from JD that way -
On my D155 48" deck the adjuster trunnion is already on the outside of the bracket. Was this an engineering problem or bad assembly? i.e. did the assembler put the lift trunnion on the wrong side of the lift brackets or was it designed that way?
It doesn't look like it could be installed or put together any other way. It may be that deck is a universal fit. It might fit other models with better clearance.
While the proof is in the pudding, I have one problem with the diagnosis. If the belt were rubbing on the bolt, it would show some kind of wear at the point the belt was making contact.
that is true there were no signs of a shredded belt. A second video is attached and finally got to the bottom of why these belts are breaking clean. in a nutshell the pulleys get worn in to the deck and start to wow out the bolt hole. That little bit of wear was the culprit. Just by adding washers as shims fix that problem. It's hard for me to believe that just the thickness of a washer could affect the belt to break. Which leads me to believe that that particular design on that x 300 is well let's just say not a very good one. It's one of the only Decks that I've seen with such a goofy path to that belt it doubles back to this bottom pulley and the top two idlers at sitting at Angles. Just looking at the belt from the side view no matter which position the deck is in high or low there's a pretty severe tilt or angle to the belt
There's another video at the end of this one that might be the cause. I believe that this was just a poor design as this has so many people breaking belts with the exact machine
Well I had the same problem until i gave up using Deere belts and found Kevlar belts on Amazon, I have the same belt on my machine now for the last four years, so maybe get one and try it.
@@joshuaglynn7204 I have an X304 with that 42" deck and I was easily able to pull the hangar rod up enough to remove the guide from the lift control arm, reverse it, and re-assemble. End result: Hangar bolt is on the outside of the lift control arm WITHOUT having to extend the bolt that holds the hangar bolt. Plenty of clearnce now.
My grandson and I pulled the mower deck off the tractor. In looking at the right side hook type link, we were able to feel a flat spot nearest where the belt would rub. I didn't have time to try to move the link as suggested. I am going to replace the tension arm and bushing when the parts arrive mid week. I'll update then. Also, my first post mentioned my mower does not have the belt guide on the left spindle. When we had the deck off, I examined the guide and it seems like that end of the bar broke off. There is wear in the paint on the deck exactly where the missing section would be located. I have no clue as to when that end of the bar broke off, assuming I am not hallucinating. I nevere found the broken piece on the lawn or anywhere. What do you think about that?
I decided to not wait for parts and was able to swap the connector. Success is once again stolen from the jaws of defeat. On an unrelated note, I came across another video where the guy removed the blade spindle bearings revealing that they are sealed and greasing the spindle has no effect. Its not too difficult to disassemble the spindle, pop out the bearings and remove the seals that face the inside of the spindle (NOT the outside), then clean the bearing, grease it , reassemble and grease again using the grease fitting. I wonder if the spindles being harder to turn affects the belt problems. Probably can[t hurt to check out the spindle bearings for those able to do it.
Based on the follow-up video you posted and some of the comments here, I'm guessing the problem you describe here wasn't actually causing the belt to break. Maybe you should remove this video or at least add to the description something about how this is a waste of time instead of just using the phrase "other fixes include" as if this was a fix for a problem that didn't exist. For anyone who thinks they may have interference with a stationary part on the mower that is causing belt wear, wrap the part with masking tape and see if the tape is damaged by the moving belt. If the belt breaks and the tape is fine, you KNOW the belt didn't even touch the taped part.
I left the video that way because some people were experiencing shredded belts which would indicate something scraping or impeding. It's all good either way both videos are posted take it or leave it.
There is an additional video after this one that you saw its called John Deere X 300 breaking belts update maybe that will help you out .I believe at the end of the video you watch there's a link to it
J La I know it sucks we ordered a whole new deck cause even at 600 hours the engine is great but the deck is just beat to shit you know , so I guess the belt counter will restart 😴😴
This is a bunch of crap. You pay thousands of dollars for this machine, then have to keep paying hundreds of dollars on belts. This should be a recall. I'm sick of replacing belts that barely get me through a season. Sometimes 2 times a season!!!
I hear you...so many people have this issue with this machine. Adding washers to boost up the pulley seems to be the fix. Very poor design of the belt routing, and the electric clutch just makes it worse from the sudden engagement.
Did exactly this. Worked perfectly and haven’t broken a belt since. Thanks for showing
What's concerning, is that over 54,000 people have watched a video about a John Deere x300 mower belt breaking prematurely. Obviously this is a very common issue that John Deere has refused to acknowledge. Mine kept breaking as well, and when I called the John Deere dealer (where I bought it) the guy said "... not sure. Did you put the belt on right?" If I could've punched him through the phone, I would have. No more John Deere products for me. Thanks for making this video!
I have an X300 and I've only had to replace the belt 4 times and it's almost 20 years old.
Great diagnostic and repair. To technical for a John Deere tech to figure out at what $ 100.00 dollars an hour. That should be a factory recall for sure.. Great job buddy.
Gee you took the time to look at it and think about it. THANK YOU! GREAT DETECTIVE WORK! Take a hint John Deere repair.
After installing new spindles, idler pulley (small one) and belt on my 2008 X300 42" deck I was frustrated to see the starboard side bolt just a mere centimeter from the belt. Figuring this was going to be a problem I searched UA-cam for help and found this video. You sir, did a nice job with the presentation and the welding solution - - but I am VERY happy to have read many of the comments. On the outside of the U-channel brace attached to the deck, it looked as if there had been a washer attached but it is simply marks left by the lift arm when installed properly to the far OUTSIDE of the brace, NOT within the inner channel as it intuitively seems to. I guarantee most people put the downward arm inside the channel like I did. By moving the lift arms to the outside of the brackets the belt easy clears the bolt and the lift works perfectly. Thanks to all who have input.
On a side note, if you change out the old style spindles with the grease zerk on the side to the newer spindle (zerk on the top of the shaft), you WILL NEED TO BUY the (8) nuts for the attachment bolts that are welded to the spindles (4 each), as well as new nuts and washers for the blades as the threaded shaft is much bigger in diameter than the old style spindles. I had to make multiple trips to the JD dealer when I realized these parts were needed. WHY John Deere sells these spindles without nuts or the larger washer and nut for the shaft is beyond me. I'd gladly have paid a couple extra bucks for the essential hardware in lieu of 2 extra trips.
In 2007 I purchased a X500 ran perfectly till last Sept. when I thought all new belts and blades would make it go 23 more, so off the the JD dealer it went. Mowed twice and it threw a belt. Had thrown a belt every time I mow. Today I purchased new belts and am going to put them on. I noticed that the tension rod for pulley in front of the double pulled had a flat worn spot on top like it was rubbing against the double pully. I had not had the 48" mower deck off until it came back from the JD dealer.
Thanks for posting this. Had the same issue with my John Deere X300 and 42" deck. JD has apparently released a bulletin which states to cut off the lower 1/2" of the bolt to address this issue. Very annoying. I've gone through several belts and lots of trial and error to diagnose this. Your video helped. I cut the lower 1/2" off my bolt and then filed it down as smoothly as I could. Shall see if it holds, but so far so good.
Did this do the trick for you? I’ve lost two belts in a month now and not sure why
@@bdubnit No, for me it ended up being the PTO clutch. The clutch still worked, however it was engaging too abruptly and snapping the belt. A new clutch fixed it and made a big difference.
I am a John Deere technician. Good work, you have solved a very common problem! Our solution (From DTAC) is to cut the end of the bolt off, it is much easier than this. Once it is adjusted, they rarely need to be adjusted again, and the deck tends to move downward as things wear anyway.
Too Logical, too obvious. Of course that is all that had to be done. That welded bold will likely break soon.
I did same thing but still eating 2-3 belts out of approximately 10 hours running. Also the few seconds testing on flat area with no load or actually cutting grass is completely insufficient validation for the repair
I have to say for me this has to be the best video save me a lot of money I want to thank the producer of this many thanks
Had broken probably 6- 8 belts in a matter of months, turns out it was the bolt. I did not do any welding though, all I did was reverse the orientation of the bolt housing and bolt so the bolt was on the outside, of course it's kind of tight and not meant to be like that but it has worked just fine. The welding fix is a better one but for someone not mechanical or who doesn't weld my non-welded fix has worked for 3-4 years now. No more broken belts.
Thank You !!!!!!!!!!!! I have also had numerous belts break on my x300.....just installed a new belt and thought I would check the belt orientation before running it and noticed the exact same "bolt problem"....with vibration and deck movement side to side, it's no wonder this has been an issue.
I don't have a welder, but I do have a grinder 🙂
Found this same problem on an X350. In this case the bolt was rubbing on the bottom loopo of that belt, and the top was fine, or at least had sufficient clearance it wasn't a problem. Our solution was to simple cut the bolt short so that it didn't continue to contact the belt. There was still sufficient thread left to adjust and level the deck. Hope we don't run into problems with the top loop in the future.
I now own one of these very badly designed mowers. At least one belt a year, if it’s not a factory belt, order two. A 146” belt is absolutely ridiculous. Have never owned a mower that required as many belts, especially at the cost of this mower. Will be my only one. One more factory belt, and I’m selling this thing. I have had much less expensive mowers that never needed a belt.
Thank you for sharing this. I have always thought a belt a year is too much wear, especially at $70 a pop. The drive belt is 8 years old and still looks good. I will perform this mod and hopefully that will stop the premature belt wear. BTW, I looked at my rear right deck hanger and the threads on the bottom have been eaten into 1/4 way through, presumably with belt slap. Not a good design at all. I've seen this every belt change, but it didn't dawn on me to redesign it for remedy. Thanks again and God bless for sharing.
Want to thank you for posting this video. I’m on my second belt this year so far (it’s only June) and I went through three belts last year. Had the dealer look at it last year and was told a bushing and pulley was to blame. I also believe the culprit to be the threaded bolts as described, so today I cut the threads off, about a half inch. Hope this will last… they ain’t cheap.
The pulley and bushing are the usual culprit, I had someone leave a comment that he kept breaking belts until he put a 5/8 belt on and hasn't broke it since. I believe it's a bad deck routing set up. It's the only deck that I've seen like that, where the pulleys sit at angles and the belt criss-cross. Hope yours is good now.
@@JLafix Thanks for your reply. Worked fine today, hope it stays positive. With 657 hrs on the Deere, maybe I shouldn’t complain about putting a few dollars into it. Just that those belts sure are expensive, and not fun to replace.
In my experience, the most common reason for belts breaking, if they are not fraying, is that the clutch needs to be replaced. If the belts are snapping in one place each time, it is probably because the clutch is fully re-engaging instantly with no slippage causing the belt to be under instantaneous load resulting in a catastrophic failure. The clutch mechanism is not cheap, a couple hundred bucks, but it is easily replaced and your problem is solved in most cases.
For some reason its just this model or models with the exact kind of belt routing . There has been a couple people commenting that they replaced clutch and still were breaking belts.
I also replaced clutches and am still snapping belts. The notion that belt seam is catching on poorly designed bolt has some validity but mine never broke on seam but they break even after cutting bolt shorter & no interference from bolt. Problem remains
Geeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeee Saw off 1" of the bolt and put on a solid acorn nut. DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have to check that. My 42" JD belts seem to break very easily. They also have sold the exact tractors under the Scotts brand name.
Thanks
Just lost a belt on my X300 at 132 hours. I had a a JD GT242 I bought new in 1994 and the first replacement belt was at 20 years, over 2100 hours.
New John Deere E170 and less than 100 hours in, belt already broken. No visible cuts on the belt, belt looks brand spanking new, just broken from one end to the other EXACTLY like this belt shown 6:00. I told my ignorant ass parents to never buy a John Deere, the company purposely creates shitty products to feed their service department. Thanks for the information, great stuff.
Pretty random coincidence this recommend video popped up on my feed. I went through two deck belts mowing my yard this previous Sunday. I will have to check to see if the belt is in a position to rub against the bolt. I did use WD-40 to loosen the concave spindle, so I hope the spray did not degrade the quality of the belt as well.
Did this fix your issue? I have one that keeps throwing brand new belts
@@maj3stikq122 No, I still have issues with my deck belt snapping. I can’t pinpoint the exact location where the belt is getting more friction causing it to break. I notice this tends to happen more when I drive over the tree roots in the yard.
Thanks! I have a 2007 LA120 42inch John Deere and I have broken 4 belts in the past year. Paid the dealer $500 to replace some parts on the deck, but still broke a belt after repairs. I'm going to try your solution, since the belts all look like the broke the same way- no shredding, just looked snapped.
I've had some others comment that they had the same problem with the belts just snapping and their solution was pulley alignment. I'm not sure what's misaligned but they said it fix their problem
I'll need to try that because I checked, and the hanger bolts are already on the outside. What seems to happen each time before it snaps is the belt becomes loose and I have to reattach it to the main crank under the engine.
I had another person look at the deck and they said the pulley bracket bolt was not welded properly. Looks like in this video, John Deere upgraded the pulley bracket with an extra belt guide. ua-cam.com/video/nfmufOGp3T0/v-deo.html
Seems like the older models have a fixed bolt & bracket which the idler pulley is mounted to. The bolt eventually wears and breaks and the pulley comes off. Here is a $4 fix... :)
ua-cam.com/video/m_GcuK0hhfM/v-deo.html
Check that- it only applies to L120 and not LA 120 models
1. There is an adjustment in the front, that moves the whole deck forward,. it is a rod in front of the deck.
2. there is too much resistance on the belt at start up,(because it was pulled apart.) Try checking the belts resistance, by grabbing the belt and spinning the blades before you stat the machine. make sure it spins freely.
Most of my breaks at start up, was when the spindles were a little stiff.
I wonder if my spindle bearing noise is telling me why I break belts, too.
My landlord has never greased the spindles in over 800 hours.. Lol.
@@bubblerings My X300, 42" deck spindles have sealed bearings, so greasing them won't help. The next time they need replaced, I'm going to use non-sealed bearings and grease them as needed. We'll see if that helps. Right now, with 240 hrs on my deck and 8 years of use, I only replaced the spindles once. But they are getting quite noisy again.
@@pearltiger2003I own a X300 also and the grease does get into the sealed bearings BUT you need 75 to 80 pumps and you will eventually see grease come through the top and bottom of the spindle. There’s a youtube video where a guy used a different color grease to prove it. He loaded 80 pumps and removed the bearing and seal cover and the different color grease was inside the bearing.
I just placed the bracket to the outside rather than welding anything, and it worked fine. Thanks for the idea though!
There were a couple of things I found that caused the belt to shred and jump off the spindles. First was the fact that the mower deck hanger on the right side was too close to the belt. The bolt and hook assembly hangs down and as you use the deck it scraps on the belt and eventually frays the belt to shreds.
I took the lift hanger off, removed the slide piece, and reversed it on the lift hanger so that the bolt and nut part hangs away from the belt. That stopped the fraying. This is overkill. This is a simple fix. The second thing was the front leveling bolts. I found them off level. Meaning that the two bolts were not equal in adjustment. They should be one (1) thread visible on both sides. I have had no issues since these adjustments were made.
I bought a X300 from JD in 2009 and the belt wore out in 2022 and this is when I replaced it. I have 5/8” exposed threads showing on the bottom after leveling the deck.
Talk to Deere tech told me a lot of people also scallop the bottom of deck by mowing to close to ground on uneven lawns.Just 42 in deck stripped 6 hundred
Excellent video.
John Deere gone cheap.
Time to start class action lawsuits.
Mower aren't cheap
John deere needs to be held responsible
I have broken 4 belts in four years. Got tired of paying my dealer to replace the belts and found the same problem on my X300.
Dealing with the same issue. Same mower. Im on 6 belts this year and 3 belts last year. I have changed belts, parts, aligned it, taken it to a tractor/mower mechanic. Just broke another today.
The two pulleys on the rear of the deck sometimes the holes on a deck itself gets wowed out to an oval shape. Adding washers to both sides seem to solve the issue in one case I came across
My dealer come up with the same lame excuse for the belt breaking, he said the the reason was because the RPM's was not fast enough when engaging the PTO. That was on a 2011JD X300. Just bought a 2018 X350 and it has not broke the belt as of yet. So don't know if they fixed the problem but it has 4 years of warranty so they will have to keep replacing the belt if not. If it wasn't under warranty I would do the same changes that you did. Thanks for sharing your mod on the X300.
Well I’m glad to see this video cause I’m having the same problem. But, did his fix last ???
My John Deere belt lasted 5 or 6 years before I changed to a Napa belt, then it started breaking.
I’m gonna try another Napa belt and take a close look at this bolt tolerance. Thanks for the video.
My X300 is 6 yrs. old and has the original belt on it still. I have not changed any of the belts in over 600 hrs.
I've had more trouble with John deere belt breakage than any other brands.
my problem on X300 with 42 inch deck is that I bent the transfer bar out on the end where the smaller of the two rear idler pullleys mounts. this bend caused that small flat back pulley to run cocked and the belt wore itself out on the flange of that flat back pulley. too long a bold elsewhere on the deck had nothing to do with my problem. my bent bar was caused by my own laziness and impatience. When replacing the belt one time I put a pipe over the top of the belt keeper and bent it back away from the idler pulley to let the new belt drop down between the pulley and the belt keeper. should have used a 15 mm socket to remove (or at least loosen) the pulley to make room for it to drop down.
Does this flaw affect later models, like the X500?
Mine is a 2011 X-300 & all of a sudden, I'm going through belts too. So after watching this, I went out & checked mine & my LH side has this clearance issue (oddly - this video shows the RH side as the problem). I put a new belt on a week ago & after one cutting, the new one is starting to fray - right on the inboard of the belt that goes into the V-channels, right where this bolt was very near it - it was starting to make noise like my other new belt did just before it let go. On the 2011, the bolt that drops down from my frame is kind of loose - on a swivel type of connection, so I removed the nut from the bottom & simply flipped-around the bottom bracket & re-assembled. Now I have all kinds of clearance there. Can't wait to cut the lawn in a few days to see if this solved the issue. BUT, now I'm wondering how the OE belt lasted 8 years???
It also may be a pulley or two that has become oblong where the bolt hole goes through or the actual deck mounting point has been compromised with worn-down metal, allowing the misalignment of pulleys. The most likely cause from breaking belts clean is misaligned pulleys. But if your belt is shredding it could be from misaligned pulleys and or something impeding the path of the belt. I have had also at least two people comment that once their PTO clutch was replaced the breaking belt issue went away.
Keep in mind when that belt is in operation it is vibrating back and forth in that running path.
x350. Not only does the adjustment screw rub up against the belt it is also sitting at an angle while the other is almost vertical. Tried adjusting screws to no avail. Will see if I can stick it to the outside or just cut it with an angle grinder... very disappointing.
Nice field engineering.
I've broken 26 belts on my x300. On my 4th year of mowing!!!
Wow seems like It would be cheaper just to buy another mower
Omg cant believe it.. my sabo is running on the same belts and bearings for 12 years now
Wonder if you could have put 2 30 degree bends in the hanger and gotten to the outside far enough.
try adjusting the pully assembly at the rear of the deck to get more clearance.
Well damn, I can’t weld. Lol. I have a 2022 same issue
I was working on my X300 deck last night and also noticed how close the belt seems to come to that height adjustment bolt. I haven't blown any belts yet, but it definitely raised some concern when I saw it.
Well I have found that most of the breaking belts comes from misaligned pulleys and not that hanger Bolt
If there is too much dust when you mow will that make the belt dusty and make it slip on the pulley and wear down the belt
Planning on buying a riding mower. Does Cub Cadet have the same problem.
I've never had any problems with belts breaking like that except for that 1 model from John Deere
About to do this fix after work today! thanks for the pro tip! (blew 2 belts this summer, the mower has less than 150 hours.)
Jake P this mower has not come back to me for a blown belt but keep in mind there are other things that can break a belt like misaligned pulleys and or belt too tight. ETC. Good luck with your fix...
I'm not an engineer I just fix shit😆 great video imma fix this shit too
No need to buy JD belts. I got my exact specification belt off ebay for $35 delivered from Pro Parts Place in Swainsboro, GA
I replaced my belt Friday! Mowed for an hour on Saturday and the belt broke again!!!!!
If it is breaking clean snap then it is most likely the pulleys are out of alignment don't know if you saw the last part of this video but there's a follow-up video that might help you out
Got a john deere e130 that is 2 months old. Less than 6 miles on it but already snapped 2 belts. Any suggestions?
Wow dude that's unbelievable...if its new it should have a warranty...but seriously wtf...i am a big JD fan but I would see if they could give you another hopefully thinking everything would be fine. Otherwise something must be missing or misaligned. Sorry for your trouble
Store Warranty is only 30 days. I didn't get the extended warranty. Im a week too late... I guess the e130 model is made like that. With no adjustable tensioner.
I had similar problem. After 8 years with original belt thought it was time to replace. That's when the problems started. After 2 1/2 years and five belts later John Deere finally resolved problem by replacing pto clutch. Problem solved!!
You are the 2nd person that has said that after replacing original belt is when problems started and he too replaced pro. Maybe its possible when the friction plates in the clutch get worn they jerk the belt too abruptly.
I took a saw Saw cut both ends off bolts so far so good
This is good thank for posting The problem with my deck belt is when Im cutting long grass with my Lawn Tractor. They are realy not design to cut long grass. They are realy design just to cut lawns. For long tall grass I found I need a tractor with a slasher on the back of it .But I haven got a slasher All I have is my MTD Rover 38" Lawn Tractor. But I found a way to cut long tall grass with out righting my Deck belt. In the pass I have found that if Im not careful enough I can easily do major damage to the deck belt. or even the blades. Most lawn tractor have a powerful engines they will not stop no mater what. And though it takes a lot to jam up and stop the blades spinning. it do's happen But always if the blades do jam up in long grass it will happen so fast that the powerful engine I have in my lawn tractor will just keep on turning. Burning out a huge chunk of the deck belt . The hint of this happening will be, that it will produces a huge amount of smoke, from under the hood. And most times it will right off the deck belt. Though if it doesn't brake, most time the deck belt will still work, But a deck belt is balance part of the lawn tracker . When I have burn out a deck belt I notice that it will take a huge chunk out of it . The belt will then be out of balance. It if do's not brake though I can still use it But it be out of balance and it will shake the hell out of the deck.
A V belt is not designed to bend back on itself.......a serpentine belt is..............Here is a design flaw in this system...........the longer a belt is and the greater distance between bend points, the worse the situation gets. A mad person designed this arrangement. As the Irish say.....You can nae polish a turd!!
Stavros
The local John Deere dealer went out of business in our city two months ago. This particular dealer still has about 17 other locations statewide. My business should see an increase as a result of them closing. They sold Stihl products also. Have not been impressed with what I have seen and heard about this an
John Deere dealer. As for them not being able to diagnose and repair this factory flaw over a course of nine years on a belt repeatedly breaking. Just pitiful.
ive been looking on youtube for removing john deere decks & even I can see that the hooking hang bolt should be on the outside, not inside the frame- also looks like the coter pins were rigged too. no way they got this from JD that way -
Finally someone saw the obvious!
The bolts go on the outside on other models, x series are on the inside
On my D155 48" deck the adjuster trunnion is already on the outside of the bracket. Was this an engineering problem or bad assembly? i.e. did the assembler put the lift trunnion on the wrong side of the lift brackets or was it designed that way?
It doesn't look like it could be installed or put together any other way. It may be that deck is a universal fit. It might fit other models with better clearance.
While the proof is in the pudding, I have one problem with the diagnosis. If the belt were rubbing on the bolt, it would show some kind of wear at the point the belt was making contact.
that is true there were no signs of a shredded belt. A second video is attached and finally got to the bottom of why these belts are breaking clean. in a nutshell the pulleys get worn in to the deck and start to wow out the bolt hole. That little bit of wear was the culprit. Just by adding washers as shims fix that problem. It's hard for me to believe that just the thickness of a washer could affect the belt to break. Which leads me to believe that that particular design on that x 300 is well let's just say not a very good one. It's one of the only Decks that I've seen with such a goofy path to that belt it doubles back to this bottom pulley and the top two idlers at sitting at Angles. Just looking at the belt from the side view no matter which position the deck is in high or low there's a pretty severe tilt or angle to the belt
I have the X350 so I’ll be watching for this.
John Deere X300 went through two belts the fix was changed out the electric company
why would the belt keep breaking/ coming off on these thing
There's another video at the end of this one that might be the cause. I believe that this was just a poor design as this has so many people breaking belts with the exact machine
I'm not an engineer I just fix shit 🤣
Well I had the same problem until i gave up using Deere belts and found Kevlar belts on Amazon, I have the same belt on my machine now for the last four years, so maybe get one and try it.
Well what's the part number
I just shredded a new belt, same reason.
The leveling bolts go on from the outside of the frame
I am having the same Problem with Belts Breaking.
found the same exact problem on my x300
@Elegant Fowl no one cares that urs never broke this is for people having problem s
I didn't realize you were the boss of who could post and what they could say...
I did all this and still Shread belts. 10+ now I’m so pissed
Did it break?
It's not my machine but as far as I know it's still on there
J La
I’ve a similar issue was curious as I couldn’t find an update. I’ll check my deck out this spring. Thanks 😊
Good work!
put the pin on the other side of the frame
You can't do that it physically won't work
@@joshuaglynn7204 I have an X304 with that 42" deck and I was easily able to pull the hangar rod up enough to remove the guide from the lift control arm, reverse it, and re-assemble.
End result: Hangar bolt is on the outside of the lift control arm WITHOUT having to extend the bolt that holds the hangar bolt. Plenty of clearnce now.
@@nycsh00ter thx Joseph, don't have a welder so Imma try this method.
@@jeffreyreeves9113 Did it work?
Put plastic covers back on outside pulleys. I'm talking from experience
Switch the deal to the outside, 90 degree rotation to remove the assembly and put it on the outside. Gets it out of the way. Done:)
You're welcome. Non JD dealer small engine mechanic, just got it together:)
Is there enough clearance for the mower to move from 1” to reasonable cutting height without binding?
@@alpirigyi187 follow what I said in the earlier reply. And it should work as it was designed to be. I hope that helps.
My grandson and I pulled the mower deck off the tractor. In looking at the right side hook type link, we were able to feel a flat spot nearest where the belt would rub. I didn't have time to try to move the link as suggested. I am going to replace the tension arm and bushing when the parts arrive mid week. I'll update then.
Also, my first post mentioned my mower does not have the belt guide on the left spindle. When we had the deck off, I examined the guide and it seems like that end of the bar broke off. There is wear in the paint on the deck exactly where the missing section would be located. I have no clue as to when that end of the bar broke off, assuming I am not hallucinating. I nevere found the broken piece on the lawn or anywhere. What do you think about that?
I decided to not wait for parts and was able to swap the connector. Success is once again stolen from the jaws of defeat. On an unrelated note, I came across another video where the guy removed the blade spindle bearings revealing that they are sealed and greasing the spindle has no effect. Its not too difficult to disassemble the spindle, pop out the bearings and remove the seals that face the inside of the spindle (NOT the outside), then clean the bearing, grease it , reassemble and grease again using the grease fitting. I wonder if the spindles being harder to turn affects the belt problems. Probably can[t hurt to check out the spindle bearings for those able to do it.
Pulley on top gets rough bought a new pulley on problem solved
I own a 300x and yes I change belts like people use toilet paper.
Based on the follow-up video you posted and some of the comments here, I'm guessing the problem you describe here wasn't actually causing the belt to break. Maybe you should remove this video or at least add to the description something about how this is a waste of time instead of just using the phrase "other fixes include" as if this was a fix for a problem that didn't exist.
For anyone who thinks they may have interference with a stationary part on the mower that is causing belt wear, wrap the part with masking tape and see if the tape is damaged by the moving belt. If the belt breaks and the tape is fine, you KNOW the belt didn't even touch the taped part.
I left the video that way because some people were experiencing shredded belts which would indicate something scraping or impeding. It's all good either way both videos are posted take it or leave it.
good idea with the tape, thanks
Great video BUT you have to move closer to the microphone extremely hard to understand what your"e saying.
Sorry mister no production crew...I never know how things look or sound till afterwards then it's too laye
We fix bolt still breaking belts
We put new belt on runs good for 15 min belts breaks on 3 rd belt in a week we need help getting fixed
There is an additional video after this one that you saw its called John Deere X 300 breaking belts update maybe that will help you out .I believe at the end of the video you watch there's a link to it
went through 6 belts in a summer, hopefully this fixes it.
Some comments say adding a washer/spacer under one of the pulley to level the belt does the trick
FYI I am finding out via comments that deck pulley get worn and misaligned...adding washers under pullies to level out was there fix.
@@JLafix thanks ill look into both methods.
so hard to comment accurately without my hands on it...frutration...
Iv bought at least 10 damn belts over 600 hours
yeah that's crazy a belt should last you for years
J La I know it sucks we ordered a whole new deck cause even at 600 hours the engine is great but the deck is just beat to shit you know , so I guess the belt counter will restart 😴😴
I’m at 46 hours and on my 3rd belt.
Can't blame a Chinese dude for this one!! I lost a little respect fo John Deere due to this video.
It’s on the wrong side!!!
on my 4th this summer, everything seems good not sure..wtf..lol
before this summer , never had this issue for years
This is a bunch of crap. You pay thousands of dollars for this machine, then have to keep paying hundreds of dollars on belts. This should be a recall. I'm sick of replacing belts that barely get me through a season. Sometimes 2 times a season!!!
I hear you...so many people have this issue with this machine. Adding washers to boost up the pulley seems to be the fix. Very poor design of the belt routing, and the electric clutch just makes it worse from the sudden engagement.
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