Yea, we have two grain augurs here one is a 40 footer and and has a Wisconsin motor on it, the other is PTO driven, both use 3 V belts and neither system has spring loaded belts. The engine driven one just has a 4 foot lever on it to manually tighten and loosen the belts, they never smoke as all the augur does when it gets over loaded is stall the engine, I reckon I can away without the spring system and just direct drive, however it could be changed later if necessary. Thats the thing about being your own engineer, make it how you like it, if it doesn't work it can be changed at a later date. :-)