Garden tractor/riding mower belt install

[RocketMan]

Okay guys, I wasn't sure if this was the place to post this, since this isn't really a "Tractor" so to speak.
I bought an old (1970's) Simplicity 18hp riding mower. My brother has been using it to keep the grass and fields mowed down, and he says the belt came off. I haven't seen it yet, so I'm not sure which belt, but I'm guessing it's the belt for the blades.
I'm pretty good at using a set of wrenches, but have never dealt with this. My question is, is this a pain to fix, and how far am I gonna have to tear this thing down to fix it? I have searched the net for info but haven't found much. Any help would be appreciated.
I could ask for advice on idiot, mooching family members who take full advantage of your generosity, but I'll save that for another thread.
;D

[redneck514]

most of the simplicty mowers frome that era have a simple belt routing for the deck and transmission but about 75% have no belt for the trans they are shaft driven make sure the deck bearings and pulleys are in good shape grab the blade and force it up and down if the play is excesive they will need to be replace be careful the parts for most mowers frome the 70 's are getting expensive and scarce :)

[RocketMan]

Thanks redneck.
That's what I was thinking. I'm hoping it's nothing serious. I did find out through more internet searching that (I think) it might be an '83, not 70's, so maybe I'll get lucky. Also found owner's manual's on ebay. I should probably grab one of those while I can. It shouldn't be too hard to pull the deck off (I hope) and figure out what's goin on.

[Drawbar]

You got a Gem there. Simplicity tractors of that era were bullet-proof. There is nothing made today that I am aware of that comes close to the beefiness that those things had.

We had one, a 1970 something Simplicity that had a plow and lawn mower. It cleaned the chicken house out every 8 weeks for 27 consecutive years and the chicken house held 50,000 broilers on 5 floors. It was a big barn, and that tractor was tough. Of course it kept the lawn mowed too.