R52 accelerator roll gears

My new to me R52 was making a loud ticking and I stopped for the night and backed into the shop, not knowing exactly what I was looking for. At first I thought it was the chopper but I climbed all over the machine looking for a bearing or bent auger or something. Took panels off and then thought I'd sleep on it. Next day I saw immediately a broken a tooth on one of the accelerator rolls. Left side rear roll. The front gear looked new while the rear broken gear looked very worn. Thinking they should have replaced the pair. Easy enough to replace so I did that, just the one gear because the front gear looked undamaged. One gear was $186 though! I looked at the right side and those gears looked fine. I only had about 15 acres to go and then done for the season. Did that and backed into shop. Couple days ago took another look at the right side and this time I felt the gears. Found, though they look fine, the front gear on left side is loose on the shaft. The nut is tight. What's going on?

I read, I think on the Combine Forum, that someone replaced those gears on the right side with pulleys and a belt. They apparently drive the distribution auger. From what I read, replacing the gears on the right with a belt and pulleys, the problems with breaking teeth on the gears on the left side goes away. Does this sound like a good idea?

A side note on safety and working long hours. When I was taking panels off, I took the two panels under the engine hood that exposes the chopper. I put one back on that night but left the rear panel off. The next day when I was running the machine, trying to find where the ticking was coming from, I was feeling parts of the combine with my hands to try to detect the problem. When I got up in the engine compartment, it's kinda dark, the panels are black and bolted to a black wall. Feeling for the ticking I had forgotten that I hadn't replaced that rear panel exposing the chopper. Guess where my hand went? No, It didn't go out the rear of the combine..... luckily! But I had put my hand where I thought a panel was and a chopper knife hit my finger. I pulled back and had to look twice, expecting the worst but the knife and just ticked my pointer finger nail. Hurt and later turned part of the nail black. That was it! It was a good lesson on slowing down and thinking before doing. Whew! Though I could have had one of those cool captain hook ............. umm........hooks.

OK, I think I have the 1" gears already.

BTW the guy on the other forum claimed that the right hand gears caused too much chatter or something and that after going to a belt drive he never broke a gear on the left side again. It is an old thread though going back to 2009.