Will de-greasing fluid damage my drive belt?

Hi All,

I fitted a new drive belt yesterday and all went well....mostly. On my way back from a 70 mile ride today, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't cleaned the rear pulley and ,even worse, I remember leaving a small amount of grease on the edge of the pulley.

The bike is riding perfectly but I am worried that the belt will become contaminated with time.

I will take it all off again tomorrow in order to clean it but if the belt is contaminated with grease can I use brake/clutch degreasing/cleaning fluid to clean the belt without harming it?

I am still kicking myself up the butt for being such a numpty

I would clean belt in mild dish soap solution...and not worry. It is new belt, OEM I hope.

Don't clean it with anything that could harm rubber. Dish soap should work great.
My belt was soaked with diff. oil and only slipped at full throttle. Made an awful noise and I could feel loss of drive. Just clean it and don't worry.

Thanks guys, I'll do just that.

I purchased it from Wemoto and it has Mitubishi printed on the belt itself but also has the Honda part number printed on it, along with the direction arrows. My previous belt didn't have the Mitubishi markings. Have Honda contracted this out to Mitsubishi?

Anyhow, thanks for the advice. I'll get on it tomorrow. Feeling better.....

I use plastic safe electronics parts cleaner spray on a lint-free cloth for final assembly cleaning of the belt and drive faces.
No soap residue and no water intrusion in the bearings.

Actually, it's not Mitsubishi that makes them, it's Mitsuboshi.
Very high quality industrial belts.

Mitsuboshi makes all kinds of belts, including timing belts, serpentine, v-belts and even conveyor belts.

Honda has many components that come "off the shelf",,,, belts, bearings and seals, as well as connectors, relays and other electrical components.

Loosebearing wrote:

Thanks guys, I'll do just that.

I purchased it from Wemoto and it has Mitubishi printed on the belt itself but also has the Honda part number printed on it, along with the direction arrows. My previous belt didn't have the Mitubishi markings. Have Honda contracted this out to Mitsubishi?

Anyhow, thanks for the advice. I'll get on it tomorrow. Feeling better.....

Honda like others contracts out a lot of parts made to their specs, no filter factory for example nor belts.

Good luck with getting issues corrected and let us know how you do.

I would try Dawn dish detergent, the blue one. They use it for getting oil off sea creatures so should work great for you.

Thanks again for all the advice. I haven't had a chance to have look yet, (I have spent the last couple of days recovering from a bout of food poisoning.....a dodgy curry I reckon!) Anyhow, I'm gonna get stuck into it tomorrow and I'll post my findings.

I guess my method of cleaning will depend on the amount of contamination, if any.

It seems a shame that I may have damaged such a high quality belt. I've never heard of Mituboshi but it's another gem of knowledge gained from this great forum of ours !

Had a good look yesterday and the rear pulley and the belt appear to be very clean. There were traces of grease on the edge of the pulley but it hasn't contaminated the belt.

I gave both pulleys another clean anyway and wiped the belt with a dry cloth, all is well. While I was in a 'tinkering' mood I decided to change the oil and filter, gave the parking brake caliper an overhaul, cleaned the front and rear brake calipers and pads and stuck in a couple of new spark plugs. I changed the air filter a couple of months ago.

She's running beautifully and is good to go for a while.

Thanks again for everybody's comments above.

good job.

It's slightly troublesome that nobody had the good sense to say you should just leave it alone and everything woud be fine, and instead gave you a lot of unnecessary suggestions and advice, so you decided to go back in and mess with it. The odds at that point are greater that you will break something than that you will make anything better. Then again, I was told that using Dr. Pulley junk is a good idea, so the jury is still out.
The clutch can get up to more than 600 degrees, ahd the pressure and heat between the belt and the contact areas on the clutch and variator is intense, so any oil on the belt is going to burn off. There was absolutely no reason to take it apart and potentially make things worse. Instead of getting in there for no good reason, you could have been riding the thing.
Mitsuboshi is a decent belt. They make OEM belts for a lot of companies. Most of the ones they make for Honda come out of their factory in Thailand. Bando is Honda's traditional Japanese OEM supplier, and they make a lot of the high end aftermarket belts out there. Just about any brand name belt is going to outlast the service interval anymore. I'm partial to Malossi Kevlar belts, but there are a lot of other belts that will do well.
Ride it, don't fix things that aren't broken.

mondodemundo wrote:

It's slightly troublesome that nobody had the good sense to say you should just leave it alone and everything woud be fine, and instead gave you a lot of unnecessary suggestions and advice, so you decided to go back in and mess with it. The odds at that point are greater that you will break something than that you will make anything better.  Then again, I was told that using Dr. Pulley junk is a good idea, so the jury is still out.
The clutch can get up to more than 600 degrees, ahd the pressure and heat between the belt and the contact areas on the clutch and variator is intense, so any oil on the belt is going to burn off. There was absolutely no reason to take it apart and potentially make things worse. Instead of getting in there for no good reason, you could have been riding the thing.
Mitsuboshi is a decent belt. They make OEM belts for a lot of companies. Most of the ones they make for Honda come out of their factory in Thailand. Bando is Honda's traditional Japanese OEM supplier, and they make a lot of the high end aftermarket belts out there. Just about any brand name belt is going to outlast the service interval anymore. I'm partial to Malossi Kevlar belts, but there are a lot of other belts that will do well.
Ride it, don't fix things that aren't broken.

Let's not get off on the wrong foot here.

Those are mighty strong comments for only a 2nd post and from someone who's only been Silverwing owner for a very short time. Also quite contrary to what members have posted both here, on this forum, as well as on the original Yahoo Silverwing forum which began in 2002 IIRC.

We'll be happy to hear about your experiences with Malossi products on your Silverwing. We all benefit from shared information.

I apologize if I came off a bit heavy handed. My focus here was more on all the unnecessary work. Anyone who has been around scooter engines that have been worked on a lot knows that aluminum and steel aren't always the best of friends, and any time you remove a steel screw from an aluminum case, you are taking a bit of aluminum with you. The amount varies, but it's there. Over time, this can add up, and as aluminum gets old, it tends to break down easier. Also, with age, the plastics get brittle, the jesus nuts lose their grip, etc. So when I read a post like the OP's original post, I know that there is nothing to fix, the belt is not damaged and will be fine, and the best thing to do is leave it alone.
An old shop trick to stop squeaky motorcycle disk brakes is to put an extremely thin layer of grease on the rotor. It has been, and still is, done millions of times over the years. Tell someone on an internet forum to do that and watch the responses about how that will ruin the disk or pads pour in from the "experts."
As far as Dr. Pulley, they tend to do well with people who have no experience with scooter modification and believe the choice of clutch you use can somehow make your scooter faster.
I don't know of any racers who use them, and none of the major companies that make performance parts for scooters have adopted that shape slider, even though that concept has been around decades before Dr. Pulley started making them. If you look at enough photos of prematurely shredded belts, destroyed variators, etc, you usually see Dr. Pulley sliders in the photos, especially on larger scooters. If they were a better design, Honda and the other companies would use them. They are used by people who have no idea what would happen if you put regular rollers that were 10% lighter in the stock variator, because they've never tried it. On a Honda, lighter rollers will always wake it up, no matter what shape they are. A real performance aftermarket variator will wake it up even more by making the engine move the belt in the powerband. The stock variator isn't designed to do that.
Part of the design of the Variator is that the rollers are a 'wear" part. Another big selling point by Dr. Pulley is that their sliders don't wear out. Then why not make sliders out of steel? If the Dr. Pulley sliders aren't wearing out, what is? Just because you can't see any wear on the variator ramps, based on eyeballing it and comparing it to how it looked last time, doesn't mean it's not happening.
The next time someone complains about a belt shredding within 1000 miles  or so, ask them if they did the work and what weight the Dr. Pulley sliders were. Trust me, you will see a pattern emerge.

Thank you for your follow up post, Mondodemundo. And thanks too for sharing your insight.

But who races Silverwings? Any links to discussions elsewhere re Silverwing performance?

Tim

mondodemundo wrote:

The clutch can get up to more than 600 degrees,

Really where is that documented bud ?

That's 100° hotter than my Roccbox pizza oven then, where at 500° I can cook a Neopolitan or similar style pizza in 90 seconds.

mondodemundo wrote:

An old shop trick to stop squeaky motorcycle disk brakes is to put an extremely thin layer of grease on the rotor.

Adding a lubricant to a surface designed specifically to generate friction, best idea ever

The Bern wrote:

mondodemundo wrote:

An old shop trick to stop squeaky motorcycle disk brakes is to put an extremely thin layer of grease on the rotor.  

Adding a lubricant to a surface designed specifically to generate friction, best idea ever

Thank you for your response. One of the problems with getting on a new forum is trying to figure out who really knows their stuff. You have very clearly demonstrated with both these responses the depth of your knowledge about all things scooter, and how much your expertise should be regarded.
I'm going to wager a guess that you've not had a set or six of rollers get so hot they melted. Or gotten the variator so hot the backing plate cracked in half. Any idea how hot rollers have to get to melt?

I could see rollers melting but what caused it. Belt had to be slipping to make that kind of heat. Not a normal problem. Googled it aluminum melting point at 1200F that's hot. Cracking could start at lower temps. Grease on belt or brakes not a good idea.

mondodemundo wrote:

One of the problems with getting on a new forum is trying to figure out who really knows their stuff. You have very clearly demonstrated with both these responses the depth of your knowledge about all things scooter, and how much your expertise should be regarded.

Right back at you bud, however I (& I suspect many others) am still waiting for a response to this .........

The Bern wrote:

mondodemundo wrote:

 
The clutch can get up to more than 600 degrees,  

Really  where is that documented bud ?

........... please

"One of the problems with getting on a new forum is trying to figure out who really knows their stuff. You have very clearly demonstrated .....'

Lots of riders here know their stuff ... exavid ... Easyrider ... Cosmic Jumper ... oldwingguy ... Lost it ... Mech 1 TWA ... definitely The Bern (I'm sure i left others out; this is only top of mind).

Several earned their lifelong keep as professional mechanics. None carry chips on their shoulders.

True that Teflon’s melting point is ~625°F, but I’d also like to see your “600°” variator pulley operating temperature documentation.

I’ve also heard that Vespas have some history with overheating variators and belt shredding. Perhaps due to inadequate air flow across the variator & driven pulley. But I don’t recall ever hearing about Dr Pulley variator weights melting when used on our Silverwing. Ever. Though if, if, the variator was not installed correctly (the fixed pulley-half cockeyed) and/or not torqued properly then all manner of chaos could ensue.

Hey, we’d love to hear about your ride to Amerivespa. That was truly a monumental trip considering that most other attendees trailered-in. So what did you ride, and how was it modified, both for performance as well as touring?

Tim