The incredible shrinking belt

[treebucker]

My brother works at a small engine shop. Has now for 20+ years.  I was sitting in his shop last evening and noticed the vbelt on the deck of the mower he is rebuilding. It was missing most of the rubber and all that remained was the webbing with about 1/4" rubber left on it. I recognized that belt. I used that mower to mow several yards over two seasons with it in that condition. Upon seeing it, it reminded me of one of the most unbelievable things we had seen.

He had gotten a new belt to replace this one. I put it on and proceeded to mow. 30 minutes later it tossed the new one. At first I thought I must of have done something wrong and simply needed to reinstall the belt and correct the error along the way. When I tried to put the belt back on it wouldn't fit. It was too short. I thought I had to be doing something wrong. After some time getting nowhere I thought I would put the old one back on and see if I had any better luck.  It went on without a hitch. This was puzzling.   I took the old one back off and layed the two on the concrete, one on top of the other. The new one was shorter than the old one.  I had maxed the adjuster out and the new one wasn't going to fit. I put the old one back on and finished the job.

I called my brother and told him about it. I told him the belt had shrunk!  He said that wasn't possible and alluded to me being crazy.   Now the ball was in my court and I had to prove the belt was smaller than it was originally.smiley_anxious The only evidence I had was it was too small to fit and smaller than the old one. He's suspecting I had never put the new belt on, it never was big enough, and I made the whole thing up. So I reminded him that he took the measurements himself for the new belt, he got the part number from the supplier and they confirmed the lenght/part number match. All he had to do was contact the supplier and confirm the part number on the belt matched the part number for the lenght originally measured. He had to do something anyway- the belt didn't fit.

Sure enough, everything confirmed the belt was supposed to be longer than it now measured. The supplier was now in disbelief. He said that wasn't possible! Belts don't shrink!    Another round of proof was in order.  My brother had to take it to the supplier so they could confirm the part number on the belt and its current lenght. They had to agree that it had indeed shrunk.

I could only guess at how many belts my brother has replaced over the years. He had never heard of a belt shrinking before this, neither had any of his many contacts in the business, nor had any of his suppliers.

I reminded my brother about this event Saturday night as I looked at that tattered belt. It was still working (a story in it's own right.) He couldn't help but smile.  smiley_nananana

[DanG]

My belt is shrinking, too.  I swear it is!  Why else would it be pinching my belly this way? ??? :

I had a similar problem with my '98 Crapsman mower last summer.  The original belt was 88 inches, but that size would slip when the going got a little tough.  I put on a 87" belt and it worked fine for about 30 minutes, then the belt broke.  I finally took the deck off and found that there was a crack beside one of the pulleys that was shortening the route a little bit.  Fixed it with a little welding and some big washers and ain't had a problem since. ;D 8)

[treebucker]

DanG, I sould have pointed out that it fit perfectly when I first put it on but it shrunk at least 5" after being used for 30 minutes. Unlike my belly, it could not be accounted for.  ;)

[isawlogs]

  Now alls they got to do is control the shrinking with the wearing of the belt ..  8)

[DanG]

Treebucker, you did make it clear.  My little story wasn't intended to imply that I had the same problem. ;)

Do you remember the brand name of the shrinking belt?  My guess is that the manufacturer did some ill-advised outsourcing and sent out some defective products.  They probably found out about it and pulled them off the market before very many were sold.  I just love watching the scramble when the big-wigs go into "Damage Control" mode! :D :D :D

[treebucker]

It has been too long. I can't remember. But the supply house was a large regional distributor that handled many types of rubber products. If I remember correctly the rep at the supply house was reluctent to contact the manufacturer. Belts don't shrink!  I think my brother simply got his money back?

I remember speculating at the time that they simply botched the formula on that batch. Maybe what they ended up making was something akin to shrink tubing because that belt and all the pullys sure were hot...I had to wait a while to let it cool so I could replace it. It must of really put some pressure on them before pulling off.