[derichio02]

Hey All,

So I jacked up my SS and loosed the bolts on the angle drive according to Sam Owens video to adjust the alignment of my belt. I aligned it so that the belt favors the side closest to the wheel as seen in the videos. I retorqued to 195ft/lbs and went for a test ride. Aft 5 miles or so I returned home and took a look at the belt. It was favoring the right hand side away from the wheel. So I did the same procedure again and it produced the same results.

My question is, is this correct? Where does your belt ride and should it move like that. I do get some what if a whine when the SS is not under throttle and just coasting. Here is a pic

 

[derichio02]

Seems from the service manual that if the belt is too far inward then you will get noise on deceleration which I have. But no matter how I adjust the belt it always ends up outward of the pulley after a ride. Could this be a symptom of belt tension being too high?

 

[BKL]

If you search for Belt tension, you should find several recommendations to run your belt a little looser than Polaris recommends. I belive doing so is also supposed to help reduce Angle Drive/Belt noise.

 

[wjfyfe]

If you search for Belt tension, you should find several recommendations to run your belt a little looser than Polaris recommends. I belive doing so is also supposed to help reduce Angle Drive/Belt noise.

I apologize but I feel the need to disagree, with several videos that I have seen showing the rear sprocket while the SlingShot is being driven, a tighter belt tends to remain in place, where the looser belt tend to wander towards the outside during acceleration, creating whine. Thus the reason why the belt may squeal when cold and then quiet down as it warms / tightens up. We have found that keeping the belt deflection to near the manufacturer's specification of .63" has worked well for us.

If the OP is trying to adjust the belt per Owen's video by just turning the pivot shaft, this will not work, the swing arm must be pushed either direction on the smooth shaft. To begin first loosen the nut on the passenger side. Then, to move the belt to the left, the swing arm must be adjusted to the right. To do this the nut on the passenger side must be loosened enough so the pivot shaft can be tightened pushing the swing arm to seat against the nut/bearing on the right. To move the swing arm to the left, (moving the belt to the right), the pivot shaft must be loosened so tightening the nut will push the swing arm to the left, seating against the left hand bearing.

Does this make sense? Maybe somebody else can explain it better?

Bill

 

[BKL]

I know this is an OLD thread, but I seem to be experiencing the same issues. I finally got my Slingshot back on the road after taking way too long to finish swapping my old angle drive for a new one. I have now reset both the belt alignment and the belt tension 3 times. This last time, I loosened both the pivot shaft nut AND the two bolts that secure the angle drive to its mounting bracket. I loosened the two angle drive bolts because my belt also seems to be tightening up during test rides. Assuming I correctly read/understood @wjfyfe's comment above, I also made sure the pivot shaft nut was loosened as I found it difficult to tighten the pivot shaft against the bearing before trying to adjust the belt alignment. I aligned the belt so it was pretty close to the inboard side of the pulley with just a slight amount of pulley teeth visible before the test ride. I also adjusted the belt tension to roughly 3/4" deflection. Even then, the tensioning nut was still loose enough to turn easily, so I tightened it enough to not turn easily after I had secured to the 2 bolts that lock the angle drive in place. I'm guessing that this tightening might have contributed to the tight belt I noticed after each ride. After adjusting the drive belt to ride near the inner pulley side, I also noticed the pivot shaft was rotating CCW until the ratchet rotated up against the back of the cockpit tub, presumably causing the pivot shaft to loosen and affecting the belt alignment, although I still saw the belt tracking towards the inner side of the pulley when I rotated the rear wheel by hand.
Here's a pic of the belt alignment BEFORE my test ride -

Here's a pic of the belt alignment AFTER my test ride of approximately 90-95 miles -

As I posted above, I have redone the belt alignment and belt tension 3 times now and after each ride the belt has shifted in a similar manner. I hear some noise that might be due to the new angle drive slowly breaking in, but I do notice what I believe is belt noise when accelerating or at a steady speed that stops when I allow the Slingshot to coast. I measured the belt tension had decreased to around 1/2" after allowing the belt to cool overnight.
Based on what I've read, I've been redoing the belt setup in hopes of eliminating the belt noise. Any help in identifying what my problem might be would be greatly appreciated.

 

[derichio02]

@BKL
I found that in the service manual it’s important to not loosen the nut on the passenger side completely but to loosen then re-torque to 20-25ft/lbs before adjusting and tightening everything up. I believe this is because once you tighten everything up that’s when all adjustments made go out the window. I basically had to play with the tension(.75 on the ground) and the tightening sequence to square it all away. Hope this helps some. I have the service manual and can share to screenshots when I get back home on Wednesday if needed.

 

[wjfyfe]

@BKL ,have you possibly reversed the pictures? The first one is about where I currently have our belt adjusted, actually riding up against the inside rim when at rest. If we had our belt adjusted as in your second picture it would most certainly howl like a banshee accelerating. Tighten the internal hex screw on the driver's side to move the belt to the inside on the rear pulley. Tighten the outside nut on the passenger side to move the belt to the outside. Remember, you are PUSHING the swing arm from either side, even 1/8 of a turn can make a significant difference. Patience, my friend, patience.

Bill

 

[BKL]

@derichio02, Although not clearly stated in my post above, I originally loosened and retorqued the pivot shaft nut to 20 lb-ft per the service manual, but I noticed that when I turned the pivot shaft I wasn't seeing any movement of the belt, even after multiple turns. After remembering @wjfyfe's post above from Dec 03, 2020, I tried loosening the pivot shaft nut to allow some play so that tightening the pivot shaft could "pull" the swing-arm inboard or tightening the pivot shaft nut could 'pull" the swing-arm outboard, although I didn't really understand the situation until reading @wjfyfe's newer post above. @wjfyfe used the term "pushing", but to my way of thinking, tightening the pivot shaft into the left frame basically "pulls" the swing-arm to the left and tightening the pivot shaft nut against the right side basically "pulls" the swing-arm right. I hope this thought process will help me remember which action to take to move the swing-arm position with respect to the belt.
As afar as possibly having confused my Before and After pictures, I checked the date/time stamp on each picture and they are in the correct order.
I also think I will either secure the position of the pivot shaft or just have my Daughter secure the pivot shaft before tightening the pivot shaft nut since I have seen the pivot shaft turn while retorquing the pivot shaft nut. I'm pretty sure the pivot shaft turned as much as 1/8-1/4 turn which could easily have thrown off my adjustments.
Thanks, again, to both of your responses and I hope things will work better after the next time I adjust the belt.
Now, if I can just get the belt tension to reduce a little since it's currently close to .5" instead of the factory spec of .63". It seems it's all too easy to get the belt tighter by tightening the belt tension nut, but loosening the belt tension nut doesn't physically move the angle drive the way tightening the nut does and I've found I can get the tension the way I want it, but it certainly seems the nut should be at least tight up against the frame witht he two mounting bolts securely holding the angle drive in position with the proper belt tension.