We replaced the drive belt on a Murray 8hp 2 stage snow thrower but it slips off immediately, even when I just pull the starter and rotate the pulley. It's the right belt according to the owner's manual, but it seems perhaps I could get away with a 1" smaller length and still not load the bearings, perhaps this is the only problem? There's no alignment adjustment that I can see, and the owners manual doesn't even touch the subject other than listing the belt number. What's really unusual is that the belt didn't ever slip before, but nothing was moved during the changeover. I've been repairing just about everything for decades, but this foolish thing's got me stumped!

ballengerb1

Have you grabbed a hold of the pulley and check it for wobble? The only other alignment on the blower is the engine mounts to the frame via elongated bolt slots. You can loosen all 4 bolts and slide the engine in one direction or the other to get better alignment. That should not be necessary however unless the engine slipped in the first place. I suspect the pulley.

Scottish2008

My father had the same problem and it was the bearings for the main oger(The shaft that has a pulley on it and is attached to the blower) I hope you know what I mean. Just a thought but I am not expert.

homebrewr1

Howdy Ball,

First thing I had looked at was engine adjustment when we changed the belts last year, but this one didn't look like the plate was slotted. The good news is I just spent a couple hours out there (in the shop this time, no hunching over the thing out in the cold on a crappy day!) and fixed it.

There were actually a couple problems to deal with. First, the shaft is a hair too short which didn't allow for the sheaves to be properly installed- the front one that drives the auger couldn't even be seated right, the key could never even slide onto the keyway! They also had placed spacers in such an order that the drive sheaves were offset, hence the pulley trying to walk off. I switched the spacers around, reset the alignment on the idler pulley so it wasn't askew- another contributing factor- and rethought the layout for the front (auger) sheave assembly. With a few minor adjustments everything went together nicely, all that's left is to adjust the slack in the belt for the auger!

Thanks for your rapid response!

- Pete

homebrewr1

Good thought. This baby's a few years old, but hasn't really seen a lot of hard use so the bearings are all in good shape. In fact, it wasn't even my machine- it was just given to my by my neighbor, who would rather go buy a brand new one! I usually do most of the driveways in the neighborhood with my machines (single stage for most of the time, a nice Ariens for the big stuff) so the Murray really got off easy. I saw the alignment problem as soon as I got the covers off last year, and just never really got into it until now.

Scottish2008

Well I am really glade you got the problem and got it fixed. I am no expert like I mentioned in my last post but you never know. It's nice to see new people get back to us regarding there issues. Cheers to you. I hope you enjoy the site as much as us all. I will add that ballengerb1 is an expert in this field. Hope you use this site more often.

ballengerb1

Scottish, get your welder yet?? Which one did you go with?

Scottish2008

Still thinking about it. I have put allot of thought into it and I think I will be going with the Lincoln 140. Thanks for asking.