Ariens Hydro ride on mower, Blade Drive Belt will not stay on Pulleys

Remove belt from opposite end so you don't fight with clutch end.

Make sure the belt keepers around the blade spindle pulleys are in place they are designed to keep the belts from coming off the pulley adjust to about 1/8-1/4 inches from the pulley...also make sure the belt tensioner is tight on the drive belt when engaged if it isn't your belts probably need renewed..good luck...

Chances are the deck drive belt has been knocked off one of the pulleys or the drive clutch won't engage properly. With the spark plug wire removed, rotate the blades by hand and make sure they both move together. This verifies the blade linking belt is OK. Now engage the blade operating control and feel for resistance as you rotate the blades. If you feel no change in resistance, remove the belt cover and reinstall the drive belt over the pulleys and tensioner/clutch mechanism.

Check your drive belt above blade belt

Question how old is the mower? Drive belt may need to be replaced due to being streched . Also is the clutch fully engaging , are there any worn pulleys?

I would check to make sure none of the pulleys are bent or has any kind of dents or dings around the rim of them and there is a belt arm that is suppose to keep the belt from jumping off and sometimes its out of position and will eat the belt up

On your mower, lift up the seat and you will find a silver sticker with numbers on it. There is a 9 or 10 digit model number. It will look like 123.456789 Go to www.searspartsdirect.com and input your model number and perform a "model" search. I am assuming that the belt you are referring to is the deck belt. Go to the deck section and you will see a basic pattern of what shape the belt will have when installed. There are 2 kinds of pulleys on your deck...V-groove & flat side. The v-groove pulleys go on the inside of the belt, the flat side will go on the outside of the belt.

If the mower is more than 3 or 4 years, it is probably a good idea to replace the drive belt(s) also.

Good luck.

i have the same thing a tractor shop told me thats ok they are slowed dowm for saftey

The most likely cause of the mower belt coming off is a bearing in the quill assembly which are the upright units that have the pulley on top and the mower blade on the bottom, what usually happens is a bearing statrts to go bad, which allows the pulley to startmoving out of alignment with the other pulleys which causes the belt to ride up on a flange and come off. Usually I reccommend that when you replace one bearing or complete quill assembly you replace all bearings, or quill assemblies this way everything is in like new condition and the problem should be solved. Hope This Helps Don

you have 2 pulleys going to the blades, 1 pulley coming from the pto, and a belt tensioner. the belt goes on the outside of the pto, outside left side blade, inside belt tensioner, out side right side blade.