| Author | Message | ||
     Sekalilgai |
Soooo my spare belt finally arrived at the dealer.... and I am thinking about re-visiting Suches in a couple of weeks. Should I bring the spare belt with me (along with some bearings) or should I swap it out this weekend and put some miles on it before leaving for Buelltober? The current belt has 22k on it but it seems fine....there may be some drivelash but I think I am imagining things as one ride on my chain driven bike re-defines lash for me right quick. I guess does the new belt pretty much mean new bearings too? (Message edited by sekalilgai on September 18, 2008) | ||
| Froggy |
Personally I would put the new belt on, as the new belt is stiff and hard to pack. Changing the belt on the roadside if it happened would be a lot easier to put on the old belt, as your not wrestling a new belt with the limited resources you have on the side of the road. I am doing mine next time the tires comes off, which will be around 30k  | ||
| Jlnance |
I would (and have actually) put the new belt one. Go ahead and swap it and hopefully that will keep you from ever having to deal with a failure on the side of the road. Its hard to say about the bearings. They do fail, no one has pinned down why. FWIW, I changed my belt and bearings about twentysomething thousand miles for piece of mind (and then the new bearings failed 14k later.) | ||
| Nobuell |
Who manufactured the 14K failed replacement bearings? | ||
| Paul56 |
By all means change the belt before you have to. Mine was a chore because it was new and "unstretched" and would have been a bitch of a job to do roadside. I keep the original 30k belt as a spare, and as noted previously, it's a lot easier to pack being used and flexy. FWIW- had a random thought about bearings the other day- why not repack them with boat trailer grease? It's more water tolerant (allegedly). It could work. | ||
| Etennuly |
The boat grease is wax based so as not to pollute the water with petroleum oil scum. It does not lubricate as well IMO. Hi Ken, yeah put the belt on now, I did mine before the WV thing. I am leaving the old one on the shed wall unless I do a long trip where I would carry it and the tools to do the job. Loosen the idler nuts and slide it out to the end of its studs, loosen the axle and move it out enough to let the wheel move forward, take out the swing arm piece, remove the front and bottom cover. Get the new tight as heck new one on the sprockets, then shoe-horn the idler under the belt, then tighten the axle. Then put everything back and record what tools you have used for road reference. Jinance, I have a theory on the bearing water intrusion. I believe it works its way in through the axle tube/bearing inner race fit-ment. That is not a sealed fit-ment. I put enough anti-sieze on the axle to seal mine, but if someone wanted to keep it real clean, they could put a small bead of silicon sealer around it. I have inspected the seals and repacked mine several times and see no problems with the seal itself. All of the pictures that I have seen makes it look like it comes from the inside. Also I have seen the hubs filling with water. Does this make sense to you? |
