primary belt drive : V-Twin Forum: Harley Davidson Forums

hawkeye48 · 08-07-2008, 04:14 PM

I am thinking of fitting a primary belt drive but am finding it hard to locate one. My bike has the tapered gearbox shaft. I say this as the bike is registered as a 92 but the gearbox has the tapered shaft as opposed to the splined shaft.

The bike is not a pure FXR, it has been made of parts but for me it is fantastic.

I would rather go for an internal belt as an open one would not look right on this bike (in my eyes)

Any info as to who does them would be much appriciated

84FXRP · 08-08-2008, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawkeye48

... I would rather go for an internal belt as an open one would not look right on this bike (in my eyes)...

I owned a 1980 FXB (Sturgis), it was the first "modern" Harley-Davidson with belt drives. HD re-introduced belts because they wanted to reduce maintenance requirements and provide their riders with a more trouble-free bike. (Also with fewer parts, belt drives were probably less expensive to build.) However, the internal (primary) belt was problematic. Alignment of the engine and transmission was critical, but the worst problem was HEAT.

The enclosed primary belts did not do well because of engine heat and The Motor Company dropped them after a couple of years. The belts would break in the heat. The difficulties in making an enclosed primary belt with a long service life are probably why they are difficult to find on the aftermarket.

Secondary drive belts on-the-other-hand, were very successful and the chain drive bikes rapidly left the lineup.

If you intend to show the bike, then an open primary looks good. If you intend to ride the bike, I don't see any advantage to an enclosed primary belt drive. (I also don't see any advantage to an OPEN primary belt either for a street bike.)

hardluk1 · 08-08-2008, 07:44 PM

Try BDS,Blower drive service, they make them and ask about belt warrenty. Back when these belts were run they were not very good and finall drive sucked but today you can run a 100,000 mikes on them. There are also vented primaries.Of coarse remember the dry clutch set up to and sealed bearing to tranny.