Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Shryp: The sticker is about wheel pin locking.  The belt is cogged.

Borat: There is no auger belt guide on this machine.

SSSJ: The belt number you listed in the first post is correct.  It's a 5/8 35 inch cogged belt and does fit very loose on those machines.   The looseness is to allow slip when the engine is turning.  The auger belt in its pulley slips on the pulley until you press the auger clutch.  Pressing the auger clutch brings the tensioner pulley (the white one under the auger pulley) into the belt to tighten it so the auger drive pulley below will turn. 

A comment about looseness of the fit of the auger belt.  The belt is very loose on those and  your's looks about normal or slightly loose.  You can change that in two ways:

1. Under the auger clutch is a barrel and nut at the cable end.  You can loosen the nut and turn the barrel to take up slack in the cable.  Not sure what the factory adjustment is but there should probably be no slack in the cable or very little.  This adjustment will determine how far tensioner pulley goes into the auger belt when the auger clutch is pressed.

2. There is also an adjusting on the white tensioner pulley.  That pulley is mated to an arm and has about 1 inch of adjustment.  (Look at the center of the white pulley to see the adjustment). You could check it and if there is room left you could adjust it closer into the belt by loosening the nuts.  That may draw off enough slack to help out and keep the belt on.  If your tensioner was fully away then that is likely the problem with the belt comming off.

Between adjustments of 1 and 2 the belt should stay on when snowblowing.  It might take a couple of rounds to tune it in.   Keep in mind it should be fairly loose to allow slipping and from what I see in the pictures it's about right.  Since it slipped off then it could probably be tensioned a bit by 2 first then 1 later but you want to do 1 at least to get slack out.

The belt comming off could just be the tensioner pulley adjustments but could also be from the back auger bearing being worn.  You can check that easily by first

>>>>Pulling out the spark plug<<<<

Then stick your hand into the front and grab the auger drive shaft (has the impeller on it) as close to the impeller as you can and try to shake it up/down/and sideways.  Is it tight or loose?  If loose it will ride up a little causing the big pulley in the back of the housing to ride up (the pulley the top pulley is driving).  If enough slop it could cause the auger drive belt to come off occasionally.  It would ride ok for a while but cause a problem when enough pressure from a bump or snowblowing happens so act inconsistantly.    

Everything seems ok except the belt came off.   If it comes off again you can measure it. 

Just checked what I hope is your manual.  The clutch adjustment is just getting the slack out so there is no pressure lifting the lever up.  When you first press the handle it should be free and not tension then immediatly start to take up tension and more as you go down.  It does not have to be exact.  The other is #2 above and that is relative to what is going on i.e. if your belt is comming off or the belt slipping when blowing slow then more tension.

SSSJ: >>>By the way auger belt is amost touching the base of chute, is it normal?

  On that machine the close fit is normal.  It almost touches. 

There is a manual for your machine at the link below.  Give it that factory  number and 1 for a serial number.  The owners manual includes a parts exploded view section.  It's the model I thought so what I mentioned above is ok for that machine.

http://manuals.mtdproducts.com/mtd/Public.do

SSSJ:  Luckily auger drive shaft wasn't loose at all.

    That’s good.  You never mentioned squealing noises so the back auger drive shaft support bearing in back of the impeller will probably stay ok for several years.   

SSSJ: Still not sure how to adjust white tensioner pulley (screw it onto the lower hole on the same arm?), so instead I tighten the auger cable.

You got it and understand the purpose of the lower hole.

 The 522’s 611 models were not all exactly the same.  Some had a 1 inch slot in the tensioner arm to adjust the pulley closer to the belt.  Others had the lower hole.  Any further adjustment past the little cable adjust you have left is probably years off. 

For future reference: Getting the tensioner pulley nut out will probably require separating the bucket from the tractor section.  That you can do and would require a couple of hours.  -  or - Those models had so much belt slack that you can drop a belt size from 35 inch to 34 and fully back off on the cable adjust.  Belt places usually let you return a belt so trying that is not a big deal. 

Best case it will work fine.  Worse case is the belt will not slip fully and the augers turn slowly when the auger clutch is not engaged.  That’s ok as they will be turning without power by the belt being slightly caught by the pulley.  If you drove into snow with no clutch press the augers would stop and the belt then slip.   With use the belt would eventually stretch and slip like normal.   

SSSJ: I played with it for almost 2 hours, blowing my neighbor's snow as well.

   Snowblower fever has set in and never enough snow in your own yard for a fix.  Your 522 is in great shape, is a nicely designed machine and a wicked nice motor.  Check out the link for maintenance info:

 http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/50431-0-1.html

 Nice job.  I discussed your fine analysis and agressove stick-to-it-ive-ness work in the posts with the forum admin.  You have been promoted two Snowman ranks from Snowman One to Snowman Three the hash marks for which you can attach to your winter jacket sleeve. Congradulations.