OK......the grand finale  

Rode today, to work. Right outta the stall in upper 30's not a peep outta her, could even hear the whirl of the belt working, which I recall on my very first "test" ride on her with ZERO miles. Belts have a distinct sound, almost like the belt noise on a turbo.
Got up to 70 for a short stint, all is good!

Could be my imagination, not sure, but it seems my rear brake has less travel in it now too.... I don't use it very much.

Thanks for the help all!  

Yes...exactly as Dave said to do.....but I also let bot wax himself too!  

Dave wrote on 01/22/14 at 05:13:28:


Again Dave, you nailed it.....but I do have free play, not much, but it works fine, thanks!

Yes, the inner race of the pulley bearing is both totally trapped and 100% aligned by the big bolt and wheel bearings,  inner spacers, brake hub, outer spacers, etc.   When you clinch the big bolt and nut down, you are putting tons of clamp pressure on the inner races -- they aren't moving around like you might think they are.

What allows the "lateral movement" of the rear pulley to the degree you actually see it is the radial and lateral clearances in the ball bearing itself, expressed out over the radial distance from balls and races out to the rim of the big pulley.   It gets a multiplier projection effect which only gets larger as the bearing gets some wear on it.

By using the rubber mat pieces, you are trying to stop the total range of motion permitted by the inner race/balls/outer race clearances from totally expressing itself.   You are also putting a slight side load on the ball bearing system which will wear in to accommodate it eventually.

It is a good trick ...... but misalignment and noise will still occur on occasion as your matting wears to allow it (or your bearings wear, take your pick).

Another path to take is to BEVEL the tooth portion of the belt with an angle grinder at 10-15^o angle, removing more material at the tips of the belt teeth and stopping the grind marks when they reach the relatively thin but wide corded portion of the belt.  

Also using the grinder to very lightly bevel the burr edge of the inner edge of the stamped steel guide plate is also a good idea since burrs on that stamped surface can cause noise and excessive belt side wear.

Kissing off the stamped steel flat guide on the inner edge of the big and little pulleys and beveling the TEETH portion of the belt itself yields a system that does not make noise and that can withstand misalignment without getting indigestion and making noise all the time.

Some of us use really FAT tires, and we have to do some fairly severe intentional misalignment of the belt system in order to get it all to fit in the space provided.   We have learned how to run a misaligned belt without it making noise all the time.

Check it out this summer on the trip, I have run so misaligned for so long the teeth on my big pulley have a positively crooked wear pattern to them, yet no belt noise ....

I agree that the inner races of the wheel bearings are all locked into place when you crank down on the axle nut......they aren't going anywhere.

I also agree that the 3 outer bearing races rotate around the axle at the same rotational speed as the wheel - with the exception of a tiny movement of the pulley hub forward/backward as the rubber cushions are compressed under acceleration or engine braking.

I also agree that the 2 wheel hub bearings are tight....and not moving around.

I also agree that the rubber floor mat spacers are taking up play and placing some pressure on the pulley hub bearing.....although I am not sure it is more pressure than the wobbly pulley places on the bearing as the belt pulls the pulley out of alignment with the rear wheel.

The pulley hub bearing is also a tight interference fit in the pulley hub and it is not moving around.  And I also agree that this pulley bearing is subject to becoming a bit loose as it gets miles on it.

The point I am trying to make is that the "wobble" that occurs at the rear pulley is not an ideal situation.  It causes the pulley hub to continually move out of alignment with the rear wheel when the bike is moving....the pulley hub is acting like a Univeral Joint.  If the pulley hub and wheel hub had a tighter fit where the two slip together....maybe even a bushing to prevent the two pieces of aluminum from galling, the pulley hub wobble would not exist.  As built, the pulley hub is placing an eccentric load on the pulley hub bearing without the benefit of adequate support from the wheel hub.

I have a feeling some are having issues either with mfg tolerances or bent swingarm.

Since there's a bearing on the pulley, it's being held in position with the spacers and hub.

Maybe the bearing should be a tapered bearing.

Anybody know what kind of bearing is in the pulley?

It is a single row caged ball bearing, a LARGE one so it has some inherit ability to "pivot" built into it's ball race clearances.

What we call side to side movement is actually a pivot motion, a linearly extended magnification of what the inner and outer races are able to do offset to each other (the balls have some clearance in them to the races after all).

Inner race is trapped, but both it and the top race have clearance to the balls.  The top race is trapped by the pulley but the whole affair can rock back and forth some.

Normally, the rubber bumpers don't interfere with this motion as they only buffer back and forth.

OK Dave, put the through axle bolt through all the spacers and clinch it up tight -- can the "extension in the center with the machined surface slides into the wheel hub......Loosely" move any laterally at all or is it supported internally by the axle OD and compression bound to the inner bearing race and other inner bearing race OD sized spacers on either side to make a clamped-together very firm assembly?

Yes, it has some room left for it to rock on the bearing -- the motion of the bearing rock could be stopped by the decreasing the defined clearance space you refer to to keep the pulley from rocking as much.  

But might that space be there to keep the ball bearing from getting damaged by pinching the balls and busting the race due to axle nut clamp up pressure if that surface were do drag during assembly?

Thinking about it simplistically, if the spacers and bearing races weren't allowed to 100% stack up correctly (say by that flange dragging) then a ball bearing could get destroyed by compression forces when you clinched the nut up tight.  

Certainly the wheel would not be free rotating for long if a bearing was put under any sort of strong side load for any reason.

Me, I think the rear pulley is allowed BY DESIGN to rock on the ball bearing some, making a broad but pretty short arc out at the belt end of the rear pulley rock motion.

If Suzuki left room in the "extension in the center with the machined surface slides into the wheel hub......Loosely" to allow the bearing clearance rocking/pivot motion, well, they might possibly think they are preserving the pulley bearing's life from some sort of loading that they thought might be adverse to the life of the bearing?

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But in the end we are all saying the same thing, the rear pulley by design moves freely side to side in a short arc, and that arc tells the belt to track from one side to the other which is determined by whether it is accelerating or decelerating at the time.

Rubbing of the entire flat side surface of the toothed belt across a flat side of a pulley flange makes a really irritating squeak sound, yep it does.    We all agree on that point, I think.


So,

Dave has arranged to decrease the range of his arc by stuffing some extra material inside the hub.   He accepts that he is perhaps side loading his pulley bearing slightly by doing so but he has decreased the side to side arc and improved his tracking.    

(tracking error being a thing which can aggravate the squeak condition)

Oldfeller and MM have added a loading ramp to the belt edge and added some deburring and a bit of infeed ramp to the small and large pulley.  Because their belts can load and unload freely now and only rest on the flange on the thin wide fiber-filled section of the belt their noise has abated permanently.

(and the broad plastic teeth on the belt no longer rub the sides of anything to make that aggravating squeak sound)




Two different ways to skin the cat -- anybody got a third way to skin the kitty?