Burning up my belt, track won't spin

M

MaximumHP

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Joined
Dec 19, 2013
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11
Location
Appleton, WI
Hey Guys,
Prepping my 02 Viper for the snow that's coming, and ran into a problem. All was fine last year and I didn't touch a thing in the clutch/belt area. When I fired it up, I couldn't get the track to spin with the rear end lifted. I can spin the secondary with my hand the track moves easy enough, some resistance, but nothing compared to the sled on the ground with my weight on it. Looked like the primary was moving in pinching the belt, but never turned the belt (smoked the belt a little trying to get it to engage) Is this just a worn out belt issue or is there something larger going on here? I'd think even a bad belt could move a raised track. I don't want to put a new belt on if there's something else going on and ruin it trying to get things going. Attached some photos of my belt in the secondary, any opinions are appreciated.


Belt1.jpgBelt2.jpg
 

You can pull the bolts from the back of the secondary that adjust deflection, your belt looks a little low in the sheaves.
 
I would try cleaning both clutches with lacquer thinner and washing the belt with dish soap. It sounds like there may be some king of residue on the clutches causing the slip.
 
If you can I would pull the primary and take the cover off and clean it good. Sounds like the primary isn't gripping enough if you can spin the track by hand with the secondary. The belt is definitely too low in the secondary though but it should still work. Clean where the moveable sheave slides on the shaft. Belt dust and stuff can make it sticky where the bushing in the sheave rests on the shaft.
 
OK guys, thanks for the thoughts. So I’m sticking with the assumption that if I can turn the secondary with my hand using some effort everything downstream of that is ok, shaft bearings, brake, chain, track, boggies, etc, anyone disagree? I think my approach will be start by pulling the primary apart and clean, then clean/sand the clutch surfaces and install a new belt. The surface in the lower part of the ramp on the primary has a polished look to it, is that normal?
 
check your chaincase , tension for starters. your belt deflection is way wrong. also inspect the roller on your primary clutch. 3:16x (yammie tony)
 
OK, got the belt off and pulled the primary, came off fairly easy actually. I took the front cover off and the motion seems smooth, don't see anything broken. Anything in specific I should look for? Gonna clean it up tomorrow (there is a fair amount of buildup on it) Everything turns fine from the secondary, but I may check the chain case since I'm this far anyway.
 
Last edited:
yamahamark said:
I reread your original post and my question for you is. Is you secondary opening up to allow it to turn?
Click to expand...

If the secondary doesn't open you break the belt when the primary closes. You need to pull the 3 deflection bolts out and get that belt up in the sheaves. Also lightly sand the belt to remove any glaze caused by belt slippage.
 
I didn't think my secondary was right at first, but after closer examination it seems to be operating fine. I don't know the history of this belt, so I'm gonna replace it with a new belt and will adjust the tension so it's right for the new belt. I'm guessing that was the problem, I don't see anything else that appears problematic.
 
So I thought I'd update this to bring it to a close at least. Not sure I really pinpointed the problem with certainty, but it was probably related to belt tension. I pulled both clutches and cleaned them up, but didn't find any obvious mechanical issues. They were pretty dirty though and I cleaned a lot of "stuff" off the belt surfaces, cleaned and sanded them. Checked the center to center and offset of the shafts which were OK. Checked the chain case, adjusted the tension, everything checked out there. Threw a new washed belt on it and seems to be working fine now. Problem could have been a combination of worn out belt and contaminated clutch surfaces? Thanks everyone for the recommendations, I'm just glad it's back on the trail.
 
So I'm reviving this thread, even though I put 100 miles on since I did all this work, I was looking today and the belt was sitting really low in the secondary, like 1" deep. So I tried to separate the sheaves, and when I let go they didn't move back together. Feels like the force is appropriate, but it's getting hung up when sliding. The little plastic "feet" that slide on the helix look fine, is there somewhere else that the sheave can get hung up on? Should I lubricate those feet? I have a long weekend planned, is there a quick fix to get me through the weekend, or am I dead ended. I don't have the tool to separate the secondary.
 
MaximumHP said:
So I'm reviving this thread, even though I put 100 miles on since I did all this work, I was looking today and the belt was sitting really low in the secondary, like 1" deep. So I tried to separate the sheaves, and when I let go they didn't move back together. Feels like the force is appropriate, but it's getting hung up when sliding. The little plastic "feet" that slide on the helix look fine, is there somewhere else that the sheave can get hung up on? Should I lubricate those feet? I have a long weekend planned, is there a quick fix to get me through the weekend, or am I dead ended. I don't have the tool to separate the secondary.
Click to expand...

if you had the belt on and used your hands to open the secondary and let go its common that it wont snap back closed.
 
OK, thought that could be the case since I suppose the belt keeps it open. Is it normal that the belt was sitting so low? I had been replacing the slides, so was moving the belt around by hand a lot earlier. My concern was that if I didn't look at that, when I started up there wouldn't be enough tension. Maybe I'm just not used to it since there's so much grip between the belt and sheaves now.
 
Just put it on a stand and throttle it up to 20-25 mph and then let the track come back to a stop on its own...don't use the brake. This will "reset" your belt to where its going to sit in the secondary and now you can check your belt deflection (where its sitting in the secondary)
 
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