Has anyone had a drive belt break ever?

Just wondering as I just had mine changed and my experience from riding a Reflex for years is that I just keep piling up old belts and never use them. I was told early on when you change a belt to keep the old one in case the one you have on breaks.

I am wondering if this is ever used?

compguy wrote:

I was told early on when you change a belt to keep the old one in case the one you have on breaks.

I am wondering if this is ever used?

From this forum, I recall two belts braking ... with one belt being non-OEM and the other with a J Costa variator.

Ride lots of miles and it can happen, even within the intervals from Honda for belt changes.

Me, one break on Helix, near end of belt's service life/miles. Just came out of WVA into VA.....near end of wide open day.

I have used only OEM belts on the at least 8 rubber band drive scooters I have had. Try always to carry spare on serious riding....as dealer will not have them. I make no clutch mods, standard rollers.

I had a belt break on the Kymco People250 that I tried - foolishly - to ride
full open throttle from NM to St. Louis. After a 10 hour day of wide open throttle, the belt gave way, with only about 9K miles on the bike, and the belt, leaving me stranded outside of Liberal, Kansas.

I still think that if I'd been willing to ride that bike at 55mph, it would have gotten me where I intended to go, but pushing it to its limits all day long was my mistake.

I always keep the old belt because it sounds like the right thing to do, but I don't let them pile up. I throw away the oldest one and only keep one spare. I have heard of rare breakage on Helix's, but I'm sure it's very rare occurance on the SW. In fact, now that you've got me thinking about it, I'm not sure I'll keep an old one for a spare any more.

Dale wrote:

I always keep the old belt because it sounds like the right thing to do, but I don't let them pile up. I throw away the oldest one and only keep one spare. I have heard of rare breakage on Helix's, but I'm sure it's very rare occurance on the SW. In fact, now that you've got me thinking about it, I'm not sure I'll keep an old one for a spare any more.

Im with Dale on this one. While the thought of a broken belt is scary, with all the Silverwings, and all the miles piled up on them every year, i dont think belt breakage is very high on my list anymore of things that are going to leave me stranded/prepare for it list.

1. Getting hit by some dumbass, or critter.
2. Tire failure of some sort.
3. Being accosted by coeds, drunk on Jägermeister, and made to be the king of thier sexy party.

4. Catastrophic engine or transmission failure.
5. Running out of gas.
6.
7.
8. Dirty dirty reststop bathrooms

I can fill in #'s 6 & 7.

6) I wouldn't want to deal with food poisoning and the associated symptoms of that.
7) Alien intervention. I don't want to be teleported while riding my Swing into some spaceship and have my 'nads squeezed by Mr. Spock. Ahoora maybe, but not Mr. Spock.

Ill see your Uhura, and raise you one 7 of 9.

Baaaaa-Zinga!

I'll take his Ahoora and your 7 of 9, and you both can have Spock for what ever you want...........

Tagg:
You're 48. I'm 60.
I will still take Ahoora.
Even in a dirty Tennessee bathroom.

Please keep to the topic of the thread.

If you would like to to start a separate discussion, please start a new thread.

Why don't we all send our old belts to Uhura, then she could perform a naked hoola hoop dance , to test the break point, for bigbird, and everyones happy as we are back on track threadwise!!!

OK.

Question:
Does the drive belt undergo enough strain to break it when employing the clutch de-glazing technique of revving the motor up to 4k rpms while holding the brake? I recently did this as advised. It got rid of the squeal to be sure, but the burnt rubber smell was terrifying and made me wonder what it would do to a drive belt--in particular an older worn one--if performed enough times.

I wouldn't think you'd have to do this de-glazing very often at all. Rarely, is what I'd think. So maybe it wouldn't be an issue, even with an older belt. Then again, if the belt is old and worn, maybe it's time to replace it anyway.

My only experience with burning rubber - which included a good bit of smoke along with the smell - was when I got stuck in the mud and revved the engine quite a bit, a few times, trying to get out. I got out, but I'm sure I strained the belt and clutch. Since this was at about 14.5K miles, and I was a bit later going to head out on a road trip, I decided to put on a new belt a little earlier than called for, so I guess I avoided the potential problem you're wondering about.

I had my belt break on my 2002 Reflex at 12,000 miles. I used to ride it on the highway at top speed all the time so i put a lot of stress on it. I had planned to replace the belt but figured it would last a bit longer. One night I was driving home from NYC and started to hear a grinding and smacking noise from the belt case. I was really hoping to make it the last 3 miles but the belt decided to break and I lost all power to the rear wheel. Thankfully the roadway was empty and I had enough momentum to take the next exit and park my bike in a hotel parking lot. I called a buddy at 11:30 to get out of bed and pick me up.
When i took the belt case cover off I saw the belt was totally shredded. There was just a part of the belt left intact and big chunks of rubber all over the belt case. I wonder if one of the belt chunks had jammed against my clutch assembly the rear wheel would have locked up and i would have lost control on the highway.

Jesse in Atlanta