we run a youth stock class, this is a absolute stock mower with non operating deck, and only mod allowed is a hand or foot throttle, we actually will take blades off mom or dad's mower and belt off pulleys, let the kids race and sharpen the blades for you while they do this. I have put a couple mowers together for kids who otherwise would never get the chance to do anything like this. Any how right now I got your basic mtd varidrive 12/38 mower, that will never go into nuetral an roll freely, if you shut mower off you can shift from forward to reverse, the brake will stop mower but you can smell belt slipping, is this an adjustment problem or do I just need to swap out transaxle?