Misc: Everything Else Belt Drive Conversion

[Michael Vane-Hunt]

I lost two chains to center roller failure, diagnosis after second one was chain way too loose. I took the whole bike damaged chain in situ to John McDougal and he pointed out my error. Chain was loose from not checking it a few times in the first several hundred miles. You know how it is. Put on a new chain and ride to California and back with out paying attention to things. Chains were Tsubaki and I run a McDougalator. Now no problems for 20,000 miles on the last chain. Luckily both destroyed chains were discovered before any further damage occurred. Picture shows how those on the other forum make new chains.

 

[Vincent Brake]

Your slip clutch looks much nicer than the one on the McDougalator. The only trouble with the McDougalator one is that the spring is really too stiff so you have to be very carefull about how much pressure you put on it. You have to adjust the pressure .005" at a time to get it right. Then of coarse with .005" of wear it will slip too much again.

Slip clutch on mcdougalator is no good. Hence in the box off offerings.

Esa, i am now testing my new lobes on a Godet, gave it on tooth (chainlink)
of play, and i can say thats to less to potter along winding roads, the whole thing rocks forwards and back.

But on full swing no problem.

I will give it one tooth of extra play, by adjusting axially preloaded belville washers.

Cheers on a sunny dry Saturday

 

[bmetcalf]

Harley Sportsters use a triplex chain. It is reliable. There is no ESA.

I had just assumed that my Sportster-based 1200cc/100 hp 2007 Buell had some sort of ESA but this made me check the parts book and it doesn't, unless you manage to count the final drive belt. The alternator rotor is bolted behind the crank sprocket, so different from our style of drive.

 

[Chris Launders]

I had just assumed that my Sportster-based 1200cc/100 hp 2007 Buell had some sort of ESA but this made me check the parts book and it doesn't, unless you manage to count the final drive belt. The alternator rotor is bolted behind the crank sprocket, so different from our style of drive.

The Alternator behind the sprocket came in about 1990, between 1986 and then it was behind the clutch, and before that the Sportster used a dynamo driven off the timing gears. Not sure when the ESA was and wasn't fitted.

 

[vibrac]

Interesting that no-one (fixated on the twin I expect) mentioned the Comet electric start shock absorber. so compact and simple I had my doubts but so far so good

 

[bmetcalf]

How does it work? I can't visualize it from the photo.

 

[oexing]

When I remember the (Alton?) shock absorber correctly they have holes in one part and fat o-rings on pins for absorbing duty in there. So in real world only minimum squeeze in there - and quite uneffective . On a bike with chain primary drive I do not see much use in an ESA, unless it got a decent range of damping - and I don´t mean the Vincent type as it got no progressive action and hits onto stops both ways in a hard way. So then better have no ESA at all in a chain type primary, no need for it, chains typically got some soft action, unlike all gears drives. But customers would ask for ESAs all the time I guess when they don´t find any . . .

Vic

 

[timetraveller]

Hi Vic, I'm not sure about 'no progressive action' on a Vin. This might be a misunderstanding on my part. The Vincent system has a linear compression of the springs as the ESA cams rise up over each other. The compression of the springs will vary as a linear function of the change of angle of the ESA cams and the springs will provide a linear increasing force. If what you are saying is that the resistance afforded by the compression of the springs will be linear then I agree with you. The other design you have promoted is not linear in this sense in that the displacement of the cams versus angle is definitely non linear due to the profile of the cam. Is this what you mean by 'progressive'? That is, that the force exerted by the springs is a non linear function of the angular change of cam angle

 

[Chris Launders]

I've just checked the chain sizes for the Sportster and Vincent, both are 0.375 pitch but the Vincent has 0.225 wide rollers and the Sportster 0.1875, and the roller diameters are 0.250 for the Vincent and 0.200 for the Sportster.
So no you cannot use a Sportster primary chain.

 

[greg brillus]

The shock absorber set up on the Comet electric start is not that great.......when I disassembled the one on a friends Comet, probably the very first one used here in Australia, the small yellow donut rings had deformed in shape and the material was squeezing out the sides.......I removed them and replaced them with alloy rings to take up all the play in the unit........this was after I discovered the Honda clutch has a cush drive built into it......so no need to have 2 in the system.......this was on a 600 as well.