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Message started by Bear on 08/22/08 at 21:00:00

Title: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by Bear on 08/22/08 at 21:00:00

I have a 2008 S40 with about 500 miles on it. Right out of the showroom, I noticed that the drive belt was running on the rear sprocket/pulley to the outside, touching the lip. The sprocket/pulley is wide enough to have a little clear space on both sides of the belt before it hits the lips. My belt is not showing any edge wear. How important is it to adjust the belt to run perfectly in the center of the rear sprocket/pulley? Manual says use the marks on the axle adjustment and match both sides. Sounds a little crude to me. I noticed after only 250 miles the belt was loose enough to not make the first ring on the adjuster checking tool Took up each side equal number of turns. Of course, belt still runs a little to the outside.

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by YonuhAdisi on 08/22/08 at 21:06:18

First of all, take that belt adjusting tool and throw it as ffffaaarrrrrrrr as you can. Then grab the cent of the belt and see if you can twist it ninety degrees, if you can without going past the ninety you're good, if you can't, the belt is too tight.

The rear wheel has rubber cushions inside the hub for dampening, these cushions will not allow the belt to run perfectly in the center of the pulley, it will always run either a little to the left or right.

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by verslagen1 on 08/22/08 at 21:46:18

Let me put a different spin on what Yonuh said.
Someone on fleabay sells those gages for about $10 each + shipping.
hint, hint, hint.
The rubber dampers give the sprocket a soft mount to and give a little with each pulse of the power stroke. For this reason the belt will run left and right while riding depending on how much power you are applying. There's a thread that will show how to align your wheel, but don't expect to look back and see the belt dead center all the time.

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by diamond jim on 06/19/09 at 05:33:32

Here's a little trick for lining up the rear belt. With the rear raised off of the ground (tire floating), adjust until the belt is both correctly tightened and centered on the rear pulley when rotating the tire by hand both ways. Then start the engine, put the bike in first gear, release the clutch and let the rear tire spin. It doesn't spin real fast, maybe about 5mph. The belt will make about 1 revolution per second. Then use your 12mm wrench to fine tune the alignment with little 1/8 to 1/4 turns on the bolts. Adjust a little, let the tire spin maybe 15 seconds, a little adjustment, spin, etc.

I did this last weekend. Apparently the last time I had my rear tire off I forgot to put the chain guard spacer back in. I did just the hand rotate and center method and must have adjusted the bolts to compensate for the alignment error of the forgotten spacer. Spacer back in and properly aligned I think I've gained a couple of mpg back. With that setup my belt always rode to the outside. Now it stays centered most of the time although I find it towards the outside occasionally.

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by Digger on 07/04/09 at 21:05:17

Bear,

Just as they say you should not trust the belt tension tool in the toolkit, you also should not fully trust the index marks on the swingarm.

You can try this:

Cheapo Rear Wheel Alignment Tool (http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1183995917)

Works on all of my belt and chain-driven bikes.

IHTH!

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by serowbot on 07/04/09 at 22:09:22

Align the wheel,... let the belt take care of itself.
The pulley is rubber mounted and the wheel isn't....

Do you want your belt in the middle while your wheel is tracking elsewhere?.... :-?

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 07/05/09 at 10:08:11

I went & saw what Digger had posted & I replied to Ralfguy, who I had failed to respond to.

I sure cant fault Serow's idea, put the tire in line & let the belt do what its gotta do. I have been working from the assumption that the wheels would be aligned IF the pulleys were & maybe thats just not so, IDK>

Anyway, here is my post from Technical, & I like that tool Digger has. It looks pretty handy for lining the thing up.

Dang Ralf, I never saw your reply, Im sorry. Let me see if I can make that more clear.

In the oil field, big pumps are belt driven, the belts, if cut & laid out straight, would be around 40 feet long, so the pulleys are very big & the distance from power point to the pump is quite a ways. In order to line the pump up with the drilling rig, we would use a string, held tight across the edge of the power point on the rig, that showed us where we had to get the edge of the pump's pulley, to line the belts up. They used 6 belts, ganged on these big pulleys. I used to toss old gloves in just to watch them get torn to shreds.
So, a string, pulled tight, makes a straight line. By using the belt to pinch one end & roll the bike so the belt takes the string to the farthest point forward possible, then pulling the string back & across the rear pulley, all the way across it, not just back to it, then the edge of the rear pulley can be brought to alignment with the edge of the front.

Once the rear is adjusted to satisfy, marking the rear adjusters might be a great idea, because as Digger has pointed out, they arent marked exactly evenly.

Title: Re: Belt Adjustment/Alignment
Post by bill67 on 07/05/09 at 11:19:07

I always used a straight edge like a 2x4,Put it on the rear tire,Then got the front tire straight and see if the 2x4 is same distant from front and back of the front tire,or use a angle iron about 8 feet long.then turn the back adjusters till it line up.