For those of you who have swapped out your stock belt pulley to an aftermarket pulley that uses the cush drive system, have you had any problems? I'm wanting to purchase a set of Renegade wheels and a matching pulley, but in order for it to work you have to use their cush drive components. I'm wondering if the isolator will hold up as good as the stock one.

 

isolator is nothing more then a piece of rubber, so if they used the same durometer id think there would be no diff in durability.

 

I installed the 2007 kit from HD on my 07 UC. The only problems I had was the bearings were a piece of junk. The aftermarket unit will probally be better than HD.

 

I bought one of the first IDS kits Zanotti's sold in Aug. '07 and to date I've have not one bit of trouble with it. No bearing troubles and the rubber isolators show no wear at all in 32k miles of use. I'm not sure why others have had bearing troubles, but over the years most of us think it may be improper installation. The bearing is not installed on the hub and you must either have a dealer do it or DIY with an hydraulic press. If you press in the wrong place the bearing may fail. The rubber isolators should last indefinitely, and every time I replace a tire I pull them out an clean them, as well as apply some Armor-All or other rubber lube.

 

I've been in the custom molded rubber component business my entire career so you'll understand why a comment like "nothing more then a piece of rubber" would catch my attention. Slothy is correct in saying the aftermarket company would have to use the same durometer rubber components however it's way more complex than that. I'll let the "nothing more than" comment slide. The rubber blocks go thru a compression relaxation cycle everytime you accelerate or slow down. That compression and relaxation can generate alot of internal heat that will eventually cause deteriation, many times from the inside of the rubber block out. I'd probably want to know who specifically designs and manufactures the aftermarket "cush drive" before I bought one.

 

Installed mine 30,000 miles ago, pressed my bearing in with a socket ..it has been flawless.
I inspected and clean it every tire change....no issues on the HD kit

 

I put one on my 07 rg with a 113 motor ,I pressed the bearing in on my press using a socket ,never had any trouble with the bearing in the 20000 miles I had it on the bike,but 130 tq makes mince meat of the cushioning rubbers,they are cheap to replace but still a pain in the a$$ ,I could tell when they started to go bad because there would be a lot of drive line slack,ended up just putting my stock sprocket back on ,works good.

 

I have had two of these go bad on my 07 (50k miles (first one after about 20k miles, and the second after 25k miles). am going back to stock this week; something i won't have to worry about now. personally i didn't have a problem before i changed out to the Hd ids; hopefully that will remain the case now that I am going back to stock.

 

2 questions:

1. What does "go bad" refer to? Rubber blocks disintegrated? Bearing went bad? Both?

2. Would you not by a new Harley with an IDS? If my understanding is accurate all '08 or '09 thru '11 FLHs have an IDS from the factory.

Just curious.

 

"Go bad" for meant the bearing pack went bad. As I said, the first time, I found it during preventative maintenance. Sometime after I had installed, I had read (on this forum probably) that there was a problem with the bearing set falling apart, which is why I checked and found the problem. I also had read that HD had "rectified" the problem, and we shouldn't be having further problems. I am 2000 miles from my next major preventative maintenance task, and was going to check it again then. Unfortunately, I didn't make it that far, and when I checked my bike to see what was making the noise, I found the bearing pack had again failed (bearings fell out of the sprocket hub when I took it apart to check the problem). Since I don't have a newer bike, I don't know about the reliability of the new system. I do know it is different, as the bearing pack I need is different that the 08s (and later). Anyway, I have taken mine off and won't have that worry anymore.