PTO Control Cable continuously Breaking on Troy-Bilt Pony 7 Speed

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As the summer is winding down, we still have a few lawn mows before we complete the summer season. This year I used a troy-Bilt pony 7 speed to mow grass at my property of 1.10 acre(s). The tractor worked surprisingly well however it has not been without faults.

The tractor has a mechanical PTO engagement - which features a pulley on a plate that puts tension on the PTO belt. The tension is applied via a lever with a control cable and a spring with a big hook.

The photo with the green arrow shows where the control cable bolts up to the mechanical lever. That bolt can be removed with a 10 MM socket on an extension with a 1/4" drive ratchet. It's underneath the battery compartment so getting a wrench in there might prove to be impossible. I used a 1/4" ratchet, extension, and 10 MM socket.

The operator engages the PTO lever and the cable with spring pulls the plate back - the blades start turning. The cable's conduit is locked into place with a cotter pin. As of this post the control cable has broken 3 times. The first time I hoped on Amazon and purchased a control cable, which took over a month to receive.

Once I finally recieved the cable from Amazon and put it on the tractor, it only lasted for one mow. ONE WHOLE MOW! and the cable broke again. By this point, I figured maybe the Amazon part was just low quality so I hoped on troy-bilt.com and purchased a $30.00 control cable - hoping it would hold up.

The cable from troy-bilt.com, over twice the cost of it's Amazon counter part appeared to be of higher quality, having worked at a controls cable manufacturing facility. I put troy-bilt.com cable on the tractor and it only lasted one mow. At this point I have had 3 cables break: the original cable on the tractor, the amazon part, and the troy-bilt.com part.

It would appear something else on the deck is broken or worn out, putting additional strain on the control cable. Having 3 cables break in a short period of time would indicate something else is broken. There's absolutely no difference between the $12.99 amazon part and the $30.00 troy-bilt.com part.

The only noticeable difference between the two cables is one is made in Mexico while the other is made in Asia.

What I suspect Was Actually Breaking The Cable

I purchased a rebuild kit, and was planning to rebuild the deck just like I did on my poulan, however they sent me the wrong sized spindle towers and the wrong idler pulley. I pulled the deck off the tractor and noticed the blade was rubbing against the deck. I had new blades to put on and had to actually grind the new blade back about an 1/8 inch.

Possibly the deck itself is warped from having hit stumps / clumps of dirt in the yard. Here is a photo of how much I had to grind off the end of the blade. I have had to do this in the past on other lawn tractors.

Problem Still Unsolved: Next Steps

As of updating this post, the cable has now broken for a 3rd time, on the first mow. It is unknown to me what is causing the cable to break. I have replaced the spindles and blades on the deck as well as modifying the blade and removed some unnecessary components.

The next step is to simply remove the need for a control cable and just bypass it with a 6 inch spring with hooks on both ends. After-all the control cable itself has a spring on the end with a hook, that is what actually engages the PTO clutch.

The blades will simply always be on. When the engine is running , so will the blades. Cannot afford to replace the control cable at every mow.

My troy-bilt Pony is the 2015 model, although they still sell them at Tractor supply, Lowes, Family farm and home, etc. in 2025. My tractor is 10 years old at this point so just bypassing the PTO lever is not a big issue. Now it's just a question of finding the right sized spring.

Perhaps I can build my own custom cable, having worked at a control cable manufacturing facility, I could purchase my own spool of cable and conduit with joints AKA pop-corn joints. Rather than having a zinc puck at one end to hold the spring I could wrap the cable around the spring and crimp the cable. Perhaps a higher quality cable would withstand my yard ?

TBA - To Be Announced.