Dixon Kodiak 52" keeps burning up drive belts

I purchased my mower year before last with less than 50 hours on the clock for what I thought was a great price. The catch was was that I had to mow the previous owners 4 acres for a greatly reduced price. His property has a fair amount of incline over about 1/3 of his property. During the fourth cut the Dixon Kodiak 52 I bought from him starting making a crazy racket and then wouldn't move (a huge cloud of smoke and burning smell happened right before this.) I finally figured out it was the drive belt that had burned up and was too slack to drive the mower anymore.



Since that time I have replaced the belt with both factory Husqvarna and aftermarket belts and have not gotten more than 3 cuts finished before the belt is fried and I replace it again. I am only cutting my own place now which is about a good 1 1/2 acre on the flat part since I stopped trying to fight the Dixon on the slope which I am now cutting with my trusty Troy-Bilt walk behind.



It looks to me like the drive pulley has a deeper groove than the tensioner or the pump pulley, which when there is enough load on the system, the belt wears on the sides allowing the belt to ride deeper in the drive pulley which makes the belt go slack. I replaced the spring with a new one after the third new belt and I can install and remove it by hand with no effort.



Sorry for the babble, but does anyone know how I should go about correcting this design flaw?



Thanks in advance,



J.C.