I have taken my mower out of service because of a horrible bearing noise in the drive train. All of the parts diagrams I can access show that the Evo3 machines have only one set of idler pulleys in the drive belt path between the motor and the drive clutch pulleys. I looked at the IPBs for my model and ordered replacement pulleys. That didn't help because having hoist it up and getting the deck off it is apparent that my machine has TWO sets of drive belt idler pulleys - one pair mounted vertically just forward of the clutch pulleys (present on all IPBs, GT1009 for my machine), and a second pair mounted horizontally just aft of the engine. This second pair is NOT shown on any of the IPBs.
With the frame raised and the deck off it became apparent that these two unidentifed horizontal pulleys close to the engine are the source of the noise - one of them is a bit notchy/noisy and the other has frozen to the shaft, with rotation being accomodated by the mounting bolt turning with the bearing.
I'm happy to get replacement pulleys but my problem are:
1. the blind bolt heads for the retaining nuts of these pulleys are not fixed, are difficult to access and, believe it or not, have round heads.
2. the pulleys are of different size, one similar to GT1009 of the rear idler pulleys and the other being about 1cm smaller.
My question is - can I just remove these two forward idler pulleys? If they're not on any IPB then presumably they are not essential, but I can only imagine that the factory put them there for a reason. And if I do need them, how do I get replacement if i don't have a Greenfields part number?
I will provide pics once I get it up and onto its side.
