Dan Vooght

The drive belt came off my five year old YTH24V42LS so I had it replaced. It kept coming off after moving in reverse. The problem turned out to be the bolts connecting the transaxle to the torque bar had sheared off. This allowed the transaxle to twist in reverse tipping the pulley forward which shortened the distance between the pulleys so the belt came off. I needed to take the transaxle off and remove the snapped off bolts with easy out extractors. The tractor now works like new.

I found the best way to get to the defective bolts was to support the tractor frame in front of the wheels and remove the wheels then remove the transaxle. Two bolts on each side hold the axle in place. The linkages from the brake pedal and the forward reverse pedal and one electrical connection at the transaxle need to be disconnected. The linkages are cotter pins and the electrical connection is a plug so the disconnect is not hard.

I considered removing two of the bolts that hold the transaxle together and drilling all the way through and using long bolts as suggested in another post. I choose not to as I thought the transaxle could leak if those bolts failed. Instead I stuck with the original design and removed the broken off bolts with an extractor then re-installed using 5/16"-18 3/4" screws as specified by the manufacturer. I plan to check the bolts occasionally to ensure they are tight and haven't failed again although I am confident they will last at least five years like the first ones

I took the tractor to a Husqvarna dealer twice before I fixed it myself. They were unable to identify the cause of the belt falling off. I am surprised that Husqvarna does not have a troubleshooting database for their dealers which would identify this problem as a cause for belts falling off as I am sure that eventually these bolts will fail on many tractors.