I replaced the drive belt for a friend of mine on his Troy Bilt model 466 self propelled mower. It has a two piece pulley that runs on the crank shaft that drives the front wheels.

When everything is tightened down, the pulley still has about 3/16" play between the two sections. This allows the pulley to actually spread apart which allows the belt to go into the pulley which what seems to me to be too far. I looked at his manual and there does not appear to be anything missing from the assembly.

We ran the mower around the yard & it appeared to pull ok. Is the play between the two sections of the pulley normal?