Drive Belt Destoyed

hdchaplain

I took my 3 wheeler on it's maiden voyage last night after installing some new parts that included a new drive belt. I was cruising around the block and almost back home when the cart suddenly sped up like it had shifted into high gear and then it stopped moving. the motor was still running so I knew it didn't blow. I pushed it home and found that the new drive belt had self destructed and was gone except for a few shreads. I did not loosen anything to install the new belt just slipped it on. Does anyone have an idea of what may have happened? what caused it to suddenly speed up before crapping out? it had been sitting for a year when I got it...something to do with the clutch maybe?

BGW

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shadowman

yes thats a good starting point.......your gonna have to get the rear up carefully and if you can get a belt on run it and watch whats going on.......are the inner sleves nice and smooth where belt rides?.....................

Dave Box

Shadowman is on the money. I would suspect that your driven clutch spring is worn out and allowed the flanges to separate so far that the belt dropped into the center of the clutch, which would account for the increase of speed. The belt then was shredded by the rivets in the center.

It's all a pain.
Dave

hdchaplain

yes, the clutch sheaves are clean and shiny. on the other end where the pulley connects to the rear end is a white cup? that has a button on it and a cable going nowhere. Governor maybe? I suppose it should be hooked up, but to what I don't know. Right before the belt let go the motor calmed down and began to run much smoother and quieter.

Dave Box

Yes indeed that is the governor. It should be connected to the throttle arm on the carburetor. As the clutch opens up it pushes on the lever, pulls the cable and closes the throttle. This is why it is important to have the spring fitted on the throttle cable. Anyhow you can live without the governor but you can't live with a machine that chews up drive belts. I suggest that you replace the belt, get it on stands and see what happens. It the belt does drop into the center of the clutch, stop immediately and either replace the spring or get a new clutch.

Dave

shadowman

..........exactly........................ .............

hdchaplain

took the driven clutch off tonight...it was pretty much toast. I am going to replace both clutches and be done with it. I figure if one is bad the other isn't far behind

Dave Box

I did exactly the same and I am glad I did. Sometimes it is more cost effective to replace stuff than to spend days and dollars trying to fix it only to replace it later. Mind you I did keep the old driven clutch, promising myself that one day I would take it apart and refurbish it. 9 months later .......

Dave

hdchaplain

Yeah, that sounds good, I get intentions like that and they never come to fruition. But....Besides the nylon buttons being worn completely off, the metal "fingers" are pretty much ate up like I had taken a grinder to them, so I'm thinking I'll put them in file 13.

hdchaplain

OK, I replaced both clutches and everything seems to be working like it should but I get nervous when the driven clutch starts opening up and the belt starts dropping down into it. I think I'll see if I can figure out how to hook up the governor and maybe prevent it from happening again.