Just broke the drive belt on the bike, I would like to go to a 1 inch wide belt but it appears they are only available in 136 tooth and I require a 132 tooth. To me it would seem simple enough to check that the wheel will go back the distance of 2 belt lugs. Anyone done it?
Just befor xmas I copped a stone that actually stuck in the pulley, there was a tiny tear in the belt so I knew it wasnt going to last too long. I have a 135 (not 136) x 1 1/8 belt as well as a matching pulley sitting in the shed so I might just buy the appropriate spacer and use it. I am still waiting to mount a 200 tyre and was hoping to go to a 20 mm belt but its looking like a chain will be the only way to fit the 200.
As far as fitting the longer belt I will have enough room to move the wheel back in the slots (3 teeth divided by 2 = 17mm)
Thanx for the input AJ56, Ozymax and Perthhog
Got a late model swingarm (200) 200 tyre, 200 guard and will probably make my own struts as I havn't seen any that look good, late model struts have a different bolt setup
Edit; and yeah will be cutting the old struts out
sorry the mesurements are in inches and prolly not the answer you were looking for buttt
Just out of interest, have any one heard of a sidecar belt, it's suposed to be a shitload tuffer & longer wearing than your solo belt?
That makes sense.
Option 2, To run the 19mm belt Transmission pulley is relatively cheap, Go up 2 teeth (gear-up = longer legs) and run an off the shelf belt.
Try going to the Paugho website and checking out the trike section and what they recommend to do about belts when extra strength is needed due to the extra weight and grip. Also BDL has a basic chart, have a ripper chart of different manufacturers sizes on a word document but copy and paste does not seem to work on here, do google search.
For what my two cents is worth, 200 mm rear tyres are not as good for handling and require a narrow 20mm belt so the wide tyre can fit in there. A standard Harley with the 200 mm wide rear, the tyre is also offset to the right as well which is not good for handling either, also potentially more grip which will also snap the drive belt as the weakest link is the first thing to give way if the tyre or clutch doesn't slip.
Wide rear tyres look good but thats about it, but some people just have to have them no matter what they do to the fun factor or cornering radius. Which to me is reducing the safety factor if you need to dodge a car coming into your lane. Or something crossing the road, the wider the tyre, the more the bike will keep going in a straight line and will plough into whatever is in the way. If you do get it to change direction, getting it back so it will stay on the road is harder as well. Its only marginal but wide tyres take more power to push. The standard Harley brakes and suspension are not going to help much here either if needing to do a panic manouvre.
I took the standard 200 mm rear tyre off mine and fitted a narrower rim and tyre and the handling is definately better, a narrower rear tyre also means you can fit a wider belt and keep the rear tyre central. Softail deluxe and maybe some others with the narrower rear tyre have a wider 1 inch (25 mm) drive belt and the earlier bikes (pre about 2006) have the 1 1/8 belt. Some of the newer Harleys are coming out with narrower rear tyres again, have a look at their belts in case they are 1' as well, will be more belt and pulley choices if they are. Plenty of belts and pulleys sizes available and a lot of them swap in between models as the bolt pattern is often the same, just check the offsets. Think the pre twin cam one had a different sized central hole. Also check the lengths of the Standard Harley pulley bolts as there have been problems with them snapping because the bolt is a fraction too long (like only 1 mm too long), it is tight against the bottom of the hole but only firm, not properly torqued against the pulley. The pulley is usually gets stuffed as well when this happens. Plenty of spacers available or lathing an aluminium pulley down a bit, is easy and cheap to get the right offset. The distance between the teeth on the belts is 14 mm from memory, I use half this distance as half goes to the top section and half goes to the bottom section when working out what different sized pulleys can be swapped in as a rough guide. Some web sites have belt and pulley calculators, don't have the formulas with me. The limiting factors are the adjustment in the swingarm (some grind or file it to increase the adjustment) and the belt guards which may not fit if the wheel is moved forwards or backwards too much. I don't recommend running a belt without the guards in place as the belts damage easily if anything goes around the pulley. The belts do not give much so the guards are a neat fit and mine weren't adjustable. Seen a few with no guards because someone wants to show off the dollars spent on wheels or pulleys. The pickup side of the pulley is not far from the road surface, not very far at all.
The 20 mm Harley belt is meant to be stronger but I found they snap... If a belt is made out of the same material as a 20 mm belt then, a 25 mm one is 25% stronger and a 1 1/8 belt is 43% stronger. S&S is good gear, they also have their own range of belts, but only in 1 1/8 or 1 1/2 widths. Some people have gone to chain drive, as its almost any drive ratio you want, wheel location is not a problem, wheel alignment is not as critical (very important with a belt, which will try and climb out of the pulley if it is not straight and or walk sideways on the opposite pulley increasing the belt tension and misalignment), cogs and chains are cheaper. No hunting down a ute to get your bike home when the belt snaps. You can get a Harley without a belt, into the back of a ute on the side of the road on your own as I've done it, getting the plank out from under the back wheel was interesting. Never figured out why mine broke, it just broke (only 7000 km), no drag racing starts, never dropped the clutch (auto clutch), no power shifts, no burnouts.
Have a read of drive belt adjustment and maintenance (google search), There is some good advice on what to do and not to do, replacing drive belts on a twin cam is not easy or cheap, a bit of knowledge here goes a long way. I stay and watch when my tyres are changed now or take them off the bike and take them in, then I know the belt didn't get twisted, bent or mis aligned.
Hope this is some help and not wasted 5 minutes of your time, some of you probably knew half of it anyway...
Ando's already put it in, just saw a table with 2013 softail has a 25 mm belt, Main belt manufacturers or suppliers seem to be; Harley, Gates, Panther, Falcon and S&S.
Drag Specialities have a good range in the online catalogue.
Forgot to put in previous post that a 1 1/2 inch belt if made of the same material would be twice as strong as a 20 mm belt.
Have a 25 mm pulley which was suposed to be off a Fatbob in the shed, 66 tooth.
If you believe everything Harley says (cough cough) the 20 mm belt is stronger, but maybe they are fitting the belts wider again, wonder if they put some spacers in the primary drive or moved the clutch out a bit, maybe they didn't, which wouldn't surprise me after seeing some of the other things they've done.
(edit in) Maybe Harley just put a 5mm wider spacer on the drive side of the axle and a 5mm narrower one on the brake side to fit the wider (25mm) belt. They use far more offset to the right for the Rockers and most people don't even notice by looking at it or riding their bikes. Harley have sold hundreds of thousands of wide rear tyred bikes and very few people even notice that their bike has the wheels offset to the right, front and back, handle weird though. Guess the poor cornering clearance, poor suspension helps them hide it as well as the asymetricaly offset fenders and mounts.
