Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience to this: Several thousand km back, I installed after market sprockets (foolishly) on my 96 Road King. Then, 25,000 km back, I had to replace the belt, and I installed genuine HD belt. Now, the rear sprocket has worn down so much that the teeth have a sharp edge, which has stripped every other tooth from the belt !!. Just wondering how prevalent is the choice to go to belt drive to avoid such potential problems.

 

Sorry I meant chain drive in the last sentence

not just Harley , but any poorly made belt drive pully matched to a belt that the teeth on pully are wrong or badly warn like you mentioned. will strip the teeth off the belt.

do as Hilly suggests & get a new belt S&S have good belts too.

Changing to chain on your bike not a simple process. & as i've said before you need the best quality made in USA gear box counter sprocket, the cheaper made in tawan don't last. you also need the best chain youcan buy don't be cheap & have to work out ratio so gearing is about the same. a normal HD counter sproket is 23 teeth, some like 24 or 25 , & if you want it lower geared 22 the rear wheel sproket normally from 48 to 51, some people used to get special 55 tooth rear but more for drags. you can get high quality flat sprokets or the dished type just have to find out what your bike needs to line up sprokets. much easier to get new genuine belt sproket & new belt. my bike came to me with an S&S belt on stock sprokets i have over 90,000k up but did not do them all myself i average about 20,000k a year. not trying.

 

Thanks all for feedback. Much appreciated.

I have a question here. how many kms are belts good for? I have a 2002 fatty with 20,000 kms on it and as far as I know it is the original belt. do they deteriorate with age? I have had a close look at the belt and it looks ok to me. (small cracks visible) I like the belt cos there is less maintenance involved than a chain. if you changed your pulley and your belt at different times gbarr with different manufacturers then its understandable why they would wear.

Hilly I need some clarification from you please. I do not know what you mean when you say you modify HD sprockets. How do you modify them? Also, what do you mean by "offset"? My undesratanding has always been that belt and sprockets line up. Period. No offset. I would appreciate your enlightening me.

Regarding the question re the life expectancy of a belt: I have done 316,000 km on my 96 Road King, and I am on my 5 th belt. Most of my belt failures have been sheer bad luck i.e. a stone getting trapped under the belt and causing a split. However, and this is something you CAN control, as has been mentioned, a belt can last a bloody long time (one of mine went for 100,000 km) if everything is kept in order so there are no untoward stresses on the belt. That is, keep alignment correct, keep tension correct, don't use worn sprockets which will destroy your belt.

Modify Offset.
some times the pulley has a different off set and needs to be spaced out from the wheel hub to clear things. the front pulley is heaps wide.
You can get lucky with Harley fronts and rears to come up with a ratio at or near what your looking for.

Chain and sprockets don't like stones or sand either, requires constant attention to cleaning, lubing and adjustment, Won't last any where near a belt and usually will require sprockets and chain replacement as a set when they are worn out.
Only real advantage I can see with chain over belt for common power and riding is a Chain can be removed and replaced very easy with out pulling half the bike apart.

Thanks Hilly. I am OK with all that. Thanks for clarification. I can see the water. Now I'll have a drink hhahaha

longest i have known a belt to last was 300,000k ( not mine )

Also i know a guy who stops to clean belt after he rides over cold mix where lot of blue metal just been layed. he uses a tooth brush, pushs bike forwar then gets down uses tooth brush to clean inside belt. i don't think you need to be that drastic. but good idea to have a close inspection & remove any stones.