DR26PRO BeltChanges

This is a follow-up to another video of mine (   • DR-Power PRO26 Brush-Hog Problems   DR-Power PRO26 Brush-Hog Problems, see also    • DR Power PRO26 mulching mower neutral...  ) showing how easy it is to tension the drive-belt, install the same-or-new drive-belt, and how easy it is to pull the mowing deck off this DR Power 26PRO mulching mower. I still recommend the AK33-belt to fix ghost walking issues, at least on my specific model.


Okay, so I threw-together another short video showing how quick and easy it really is to replace the belts on my 2018 DR Power 26PRO mulching mower, after receiving so many questions and comments about how I fixed my brand new brushhog ghost walking by itself.

This shows the belt-change I made a couple years ago, selecting an AK33-belt, which is 1-inch longer than original drive belt, because I couldn't get enough slack in the right-hand trigger control cable to keep the machine from ghost walking.

Here I'm adjusting the cable-stretcher to be as slack as I can, to make the longer-belt intentionally jump off the drive-pulley... so I can show how easy it is to put the drive belt back on (in the field). Because I am using a 1-inch longer belt than stock, if I make the stretcher as short as possible, the belt will pop-off the transmission pulley if I release the drive handle quickly.

Okay, so I have purposefully loosened the belt and thrown it off to show you what would happen if you had the belt so loose or the adjustment so tight on the handle that the belt popped off, this is what I'd do... so just to prove that the belt is off, I'm going to put it into gear, and I really shouldn't be able to push it when it's in gear, if the belt was holding. So this is what I do... first I turn off the fuel, and then I lay it over on the side of the carburetor, and that is so that I don't flow fuel into the muffler, so what I do is once I do that I flip this thing up...

Okay, so the first thing I do is make sure the belt is tight around the clutch-side drive pulley; so you'll notice, here's the belt, I'll try to make it loose around the clutch-side pulley, there it is, you can see the drive-side of the belt popped-up there... so I pull it tight across the clutch-pulley, I make sure it stays inside the belt guide like that, and I simply work up here. I get the belt around the high-side of the transmission drive pulley as much as I can, I'll see if I can pop it back on directly (this only works if the drive cable stretcher is super-loose), I might not be able to and I might have to walk the transmission back (has to be shifted into neutral), and the belt should pop into place.

So there you have it, it literally takes me 30-seconds to pop a drive-belt back on in the field, it just took me longer here because I was describing everything. And, sorry I kept calling the pulleys clutches, but you get the idea. Also worth mentioning for safety-reasons, do NOT touch the muffler, which will be stupid-hot if you've been running. I'll show how to replace the drive-belt in a little bit...

Yep, I've got it on there and you can see how loose I have the adjustment, up top for the handle. So right here's the belt as it goes around the transmission pulley, and it goes around the tensioner pulley. You'll notice that if I pull that tensioner pulley up as much as I can, it will tighten-up that belt enough to drive. Keep in mind, I have the 1-inch longer belt on here, so this thing is sloppy,...