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!

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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

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Originally Posted by ballengerb1

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

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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.

Wow!, I was on my old arien all day today.. same problem! New drive belts (dual) keep walking off the engine pully when I engauge the drive.. the only adjustments were either the one nut on the threaded drive linkage and that didn't work either way.. the other was lossening the pully on the engine shaft and moving it in which didn't work either.. I'm stumped! By the way this arien 2 stage has a two season old replacement engine.. so maybe this is the problem I need to look into tomorrow>?

the Murray 5.0 it is nothing but problems , the belt will run off the ager will run off , I am not laying . I bought this blower November 2009 brand new from sears , the first 4 : snow wee had here in queens New York I did not push it 20 feet and the ager ran out of it , why did ran out? because it grab a pebble stone half inch x half inch from the brick walk way I was to clean , after sears had it till spring of 2010 I got it back repaired no charge thank god for or I would have toled them to keep it if there was an even $25. Charge , now this year we had had a big snow here in queens wee had e total of 18 to 26 : in some places , the snow started foaling heavy at 6 pm so to make it easy next morning I went out at 8 pm to clean about the 4" snow on ground , and.. . you guessed it the belt ran out and this time destroyed the tensioner cable pullback spring and the side cower ,
overall this machine sucks shame on you the maker MDT. & THE STORES THAT SELL IT SAL MUSTAFA

To your problem first make sure all is tight motors pulley, agers pulley, also no play on both ends of the ager shaft and end bearings , up and down , or more then 1/4 side ways if all good put a straight edge on the ager pulley like 9 to 3 o clock and see that the edge lays on the motors pulley same , they must it is like making sure the motor pulley and the ager are square , and tight, if all that checks good the next to do is make sure the guide and the tensioner pulley are ok and not bent.
T he way you describe the problem i think ager end play is too much ( warn out bearings or too much end play . Good luck sal.