Gear noise

[sldunker]

On my Star Venture I am getting quite a bit of gear noise when riding two up. It is at its worst when we are coasting to a stop sign. It also happens when I pull in the clutch. I was expecting it to stop when clutch was pulled in but it doesn't. I have also noticed when looking at the belt pulley it is all the way to the outside part of the pulley. So maybe part of my noise is belt noise. Being that this is my first belt drive bike not sure what belt noise you would have.

Does anyone else have alot of gear noise when two up?

[videoarizona]

As an aside:

 

My VStar 950T was belt drive. And when I belonged to those forums the biggest complaint about the belt drive was the dealer tightening it to tight. That in turn would eventually (sooner rather than later), wear out the drive gear bearings and whine like mad until the bearings gave up the ghost.

 

I'm throwing that out as a suggestion because one of the first indications of the belt being to tight was the bearing wear was causing the belt pulley to get out of alignment...causing the belt to move to the outside of the pulley.

 

You might want to take off the belt, check the drive pulley for slop... then check your drive belt tension. Let's hope it's just a miss-alignment of the belt for some strange reason.

 

I marked the drive belt tensioners on each side of the 950 frame with a punch so I had a good indicator of where I was. Could go from there easily.

[Freebird]

I agree. Belt tension is the first thing I would check. When I bought the Slingshot a while back, I had terrible "gear" noise. I found that the belt was so overtightened that I'm surprised it hadn't caused some major issues. Loosened it to spec and eliminated about 90% of that paricular noise.

[sldunker]

Thanks for the replys. I was going to call dealer tomorrow but I will do belt check first. I'll let everyone know what I find.

[djh3]

Both belt drive bikes I have owned have had different particulars. The Kawasaki 900 liked belt to run to one side of pulley system, I forget now which side. And belt deflection was about 1/2-or so. The Victory is picky or I will ger a wurr or chirp. If I remember this one like to run to the outside. Pretty specific about tension, so I bought a gauge. Need to know what range it needs to measure as they come in different tensions.

[sldunker]

Finally got to do some work on this yesterday. It is a PIA adjusting the belt on this bike as the bags and pipes have to come off.

I elevated the bike like it says to in the service manual and took several measurements of the belt tension in various spots as i rotated the rear wheel. The tightest spot came in at 3mm. Book says 5 to 7 mm. I set belt to 7mm. Put pipes back on and took it for a ride. Most of the noise was gone. I stopped at a friends house who owns a full dress harley as I wanted to check that belt for slack. His belt with bike on side stand was very loose. I would say he had about 3/4 of an inch of slack. He has never adjust ed it in the 3 years he has owned it. We looked in his manual and that said 9 to 14 mm. Not sure if that is on side stand or elevated.

Anyway I went back home and reset belt to 8mm in its tightest location. I also removed front cover exposing the front pulley and inspected that. I had said in my other post that the belt was running to the outside of the rear pulley. It is also running to the outside of the front pulley so I would assume that is the normal position for the belt on my bike. I also noticed that the flange on the pulley are not straight up and down but are tapered so the high point of the flange is a little wider than the low point. I would guess they do this so belt does not rub on the flange. I could not see any wear on the side of the belt. I reassembled bike and went for a long ride last night and most of the noise is gone. When bike gets warmed up good a little of the noise comes back. I think this is due to pulley expansion when bike gets hot. Especially the front pulley as it collects all the heat from the engine. I don't know how much the pulleys expand but if it is a couple of thousands it would explain why some noise would come back when bike get hot as the belt would get tighter.

I am going to leave it as is for now. It would be interesting to know what the belts slack is set at on other Star Venture on this forum. So for the guys that do there on wrenching check your belt slack the next time you have bike on lift and let us know where it is at and if you have any noise.

[cowpuc]

Finally got to do some work on this yesterday. It is a PIA adjusting the belt on this bike as the bags and pipes have to come off.

I elevated the bike like it says to in the service manual and took several measurements of the belt tension in various spots as i rotated the rear wheel. The tightest spot came in at 3mm. Book says 5 to 7 mm. I set belt to 7mm. Put pipes back on and took it for a ride. Most of the noise was gone. I stopped at a friends house who owns a full dress harley as I wanted to check that belt for slack. His belt with bike on side stand was very loose. I would say he had about 3/4 of an inch of slack. He has never adjust ed it in the 3 years he has owned it. We looked in his manual and that said 9 to 14 mm. Not sure if that is on side stand or elevated.

Anyway I went back home and reset belt to 8mm in its tightest location. I also removed front cover exposing the front pulley and inspected that. I had said in my other post that the belt was running to the outside of the rear pulley. It is also running to the outside of the front pulley so I would assume that is the normal position for the belt on my bike. I also noticed that the flange on the pulley are not straight up and down but are tapered so the high point of the flange is a little wider than the low point. I would guess they do this so belt does not rub on the flange. I could not see any wear on the side of the belt. I reassembled bike and went for a long ride last night and most of the noise is gone. When bike gets warmed up good a little of the noise comes back. I think this is due to pulley expansion when bike gets hot. Especially the front pulley as it collects all the heat from the engine. I don't know how much the pulleys expand but if it is a couple of thousands it would explain why some noise would come back when bike get hot as the belt would get tighter.

I am going to leave it as is for now. It would be interesting to know what the belts slack is set at on other Star Venture on this forum. So for the guys that do there on wrenching check your belt slack the next time you have bike on lift and let us know where it is at and if you have any noise.

 

If it were mine I would spend the time to play with belt tension to get the alignment I wanted. Just get the tension to where I liked it (I tend to be one who also likes the belt looser rather than tighter = its a cogged belt = should be fine running on the looser end IMHO). I would then creep the adjustment nut on the side where the belt is running against the pulley back until the belt rolled away from the pulley while free spinning the wheel with the rear end off the ground.. Then bring the belt to center as a final adjustment and button it up. I have also done this on my chain drives, including my R1, thru the years instead of trusting the little marks usually found stamped or molded into the swing arms as those are just "guides" (IMHO) to get me into a reasonable location..

[videoarizona]

 

I always ran my 950T looser than the book called for. Never worried about belt issues. It ran true and was unmarked and clean after 10K miles.

[sldunker]

I have an oil change coming up in 1000 miles. I will do what Puc said then. See what happens.

[djh3]

I stopped at a friends house who owns a full dress harley as I wanted to check that belt for slack. His belt with bike on side stand was very loose. I would say he had about 3/4 of an inch of slack. He has never adjust ed it in the 3 years he has owned it. We looked in his manual and that said 9 to 14 mm.

 

Thats only about 5k. Most them guys dont ride much. Just polish and profile.