JDNewYork wrote on 01/03/17 at 17:26:40:Hey all, have been riding 3 months now (as some of you know) and had my first accident today and laid my '99 down.
Was a kind of perfect storm of issues...was driving in the city and got caught in a storm shower with no option to pull over and then a yellow taxi cut me up turning left from the far right lane. the combination of slippery road and an obstacle appearing in front of me was just too much...I squeezed the brakes to avoid hitting the cab and my old girl simply skidded, bucked and slid to a halt....the cab carried on driving.
Amazingly my bike seems to have survived without a scratch, I think to be honest it was me that took most of the impact, luckily we were only traveling really slow (approx 10-15mph) and by the time the bike fell sideways we were almost at a complete stop and the bike landed on top of me!
I am giving you this whole story as maybe it will aid if you do have a tip for the only 'issue' I did find. Once I got back home (the bike started right back up after pulling her to her wheels) when I was parking I noticed a little click click click noise. At first I thought maybe a fender had taken a bump and was lightly touching a tire...no, I pushed and pulled the bike around trying to find the source and i 'think' its coming from the belt.
I have inspected the belt thoroughly as I can (without removing it) and I can't see any issue with it but you can feel a slight vibration run through it as you push the bike at walking speed with a really quiet click, click, click kinda sound.
Looking for any ideas what it could be? Could it have been caused by the mild impact? Could it have been caused by running in super wet weather and be nothing to do with laying the bike down? Is it something completely different. Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated....everything seems to be running no worse than pre-accident....just wanna know I am not ignoring something that could be a bigger issue.
The belt will, for some reason, be noisier wet than dry.
You discovered the click after the wet fall. You're naturally focused on
Is there damage from the fall
Even though You were the landing pad for the bike.
The belt tension comes to mind. Alignment is a controversial subject. Under acceleration, the rear pulley is put under loads I couldn't begin to calculate. Expecting it to stay perfectly parallel to the center line of the rim seems a bit starry eyed. It's not Just a machine , it's an Inexpensive and old design. It ain't Perfikk.
If you pull the front pulley cover and put a light cord into the cogs and roll it till it is at the front, pull the cord across the rear pulley. That will show you how they are aligned.
I know that works, I've used it, and that is how we aligned pumps with the pulleys on drilling rigs.
Okay, that is Static alignment.
The belt tension is really important. Mine is noisy and I have plenty of experience and know how to do it right.
It's not screeching,but it's not quiet.
Just read up on belt tension and get the pulleys aligned .
If it's not silent, then either accept it or use talcum powder or canning wax on the belt.
If you do that then you'll have eliminated the belt as the source.