Belt Drive Adjustment

V

Vanilla Smells Good

New member
Good day all,

I was looking for a bit of information from anyone with experience adjustmenting a belt drive. I tried over and over again to adjust the belt drive on my bike so that the belt stays in the centre of the rear pulley and that of the front engin pulley. I tension both sides of the rear wheel equally with respect to the reference marks. No matter what I do the belt tends to drift down towards the outter edge of both belt drive pulleys. The tension is good but the centering seems to be a feet of impossibility. One thing I've noticed is that my rear pulley does have some play. It can rock side to side. The rear wheel has brake shoes.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Denis
 
Usually those adjustment marks are not perfectly the same, I eyeball mine and adjust until it's straight, rotating the wheel and re-checking. I only use the marks as a rough starting point. Chain drives are the same, but I pull down on the bottom of the chain as I am checking it, this gives you a very tight straight line to view. There are too many variables that come into play that will allow perfect alignment, just get it as close as you can. I would not think you should have any play in the pully, unless it has some sort of shock absorbing design in it that allows small movement. Harleys are bolted tight, and w/ enough time, you can get it pretty close.
 
I would think the problem is that the pully is loose- I don;t remember for sure, but I think it is supposed to be firmly mounted on your S40. Check the mounting bolts, etc.
 
I asked the service technician about the looseness of the pulley. He said it was normal due to the fact that on the S40 there is a rubber seal where the pulley and brake drum come together. I checked out a new one and there was some play on a new one but not quite as much as mine. It was relatively tight. Having said that, could it be that the new one will have more play once it get 3000 miles or so on it?
The outside nuts on the pulley to outter cap are tight. Is there a way to tighten the gap between the pulley mount and the rubber seal? I found the main bolts that hold the wheel kind of strange. On one side you have a great big nut and on the other a smaller bolt. When you loosen the nut and bolt to adjust the belt, the large nut seems to be the one loosening and or thightening. To ensure both sides where loose to permit unimpeded adjustment I tapped lightly on the larger nut side with a rubber malllet. I'm nut sure how the wheel works with respect to the different parts. Obviously I would think that when one changes the rear brakes, their must be a way to tightly seat and seal this rubber area to the pulley hub. I figure I must be missing something with how to mate these parts...
 
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