buy the gauge, its much cheaper than the belt. not to mention the installation (time or money). i once thought i could judge the built tention on my bike to. that led to a belt lasting less than 3 thousand miles. the tool is less than a good lunch, and well worth it.

 

Yeah, that's the thing, the H-D shop manual for my bike didn't say to ride the bike and set the tension when it's warm. If you set it to the manual spec when it's dead-cold, once it warms up, it'll be too tight. If you set it to the manual spec when it's hot, then it'll be spot-on. At least that was my experience on my '03 RK.

 

jpooch,

Are you sure about that? Doesn't sound right.

 

A+ on the gage & manual.
TIP: For those in need of service manuals, watch the listings on E-bay, I recently bought a new manual there for my 08 for $36.00.

 

Absolutely.

I adjusted it to, if I remember right, 3/8" deflection at 10 pounds, anyway it was whatever the book said, and after riding it a few miles I started noticing this whining sound from the back. I stopped to check it out and got around to touching the rear pulley and it was very hot and the belt was extremely tight. It could barely be deflected at all. I took it home and readjusted the belt to the book spec while it was hot and it fixed the problem. Also, it returned the belt to the same tension, when cold, that it had when I bought the bike, which was much looser.

Remember, this was in '03. The specs, belts etc. may have changed since then and this may not be applicable to newer bikes.

 

So if you ride the bike for a good while and come back to your garage, the belt and pulleys are going to cool in the time it takes to do the adjusting. Cooling pulley will be smaller than when it was very hot and larger. I'm guessing that's why people do it when the bike is very cold.

When you adjusted it hot, did you have someone sit on it while checking it?

 

You should be able to twist it at a 45* angle for proper tension.

 

Anubisss,

I think I understand what you mean by twist 45*. Do you test it hot or cold?

 

Is that with no one sitting on the bike?
Next time I go to the dealership, I will do the twist test on a few of their new bikes, that have the same width belt as mine. Then I can use that as a rule of thumb measurement, when I check mine.
I was taught, on my first bike, to adjust the chain/belt by counting flats, as JPooch00 mentioned.
Tom

 

You're right about it cooling down some in the time it takes to get the bag off and loosen the nut etc. It was still pretty warm when I backed off a little of the tension though. If I remember right, I set it to the top of the spec range (5/8"?). No one was sitting on it at the time. The next day I checked it cold and it was looser than the book max. Seems like it went close to the last mark on the belt guard scale. It felt about the same as when I first bought the bike new. I rode it a good ways, probably about 35 miles, and pulled over and checked it with the gauge and it was at exactly 3/8" deflection and the rear pulley was luke warm. Air temp that day was probably about 80. All of this took place at the 1000 mile checkup, fluid change etc., which I did myself.

And on my '03 RK the belt was adjusted with this, IMHO, half-assed cam arrangement which was incredibly sensitive and easy to over/under adjust. I don't know if the newer bikes still use this system, but it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

I never fooled with it again and had no more problems with it.

Happy holidays,

John