follow up on plugging tire

[ballisticexchris]

LOL, Chris, I guess we'll both have to continue to bask in the warm embrace of confirmation bias. I have no idea what the actual failure rate of a belt is, and I doubt that those figures are available anywhere to the general public. I had a Harley for a decade, and rode with and knew lots of other guys who had them, and none of them ever experienced a belt breaking. I'm sure some do fail, that's inevitable, but my experiences with them don't lead me to the conclusion that they aren't a reliable drive system. I have, however, seen at least three V-Stroms with broken chains, but I'm going to steadfastly fight the urge to draw any conclusions about the reliability of a chain drive system from that data

And I must admit I omitted the part that the belt that split from the pebbles was from a stupid fire road in Death Valley. I warned my buddy but he decided to do it anyway. He got stuck in some mud and I picked out all the pebbles I could. When we got on the highway I followed him and smelled burning rubber. I thought it was his tire. dang belt split. It did get us over 100 miles back home though. Heck man I bet any drive system has its issues. Only reason I'm against the belts is because it's such a pain to service them on the Harley's and Indians.

 

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

Looks like the belt dragged on the sidewall. And belts are horrible. I was stuck picking out rocks from my buddies Indian. And it still split the belt. We were lucky to make it home. Not durable at all.

Nope that is not at all what happened, it was due to the tire getting a nail and then blowing up. I still have the same belt on the bike and it looks brand new. That is after 60,000 km. I was a little hesitant on getting a bike with a belt drive but the one on the Victory far surpasses any chain driven bike I have ridden on or owned. I would buy a belt driven bike over a chain driven bike any day of the week. I can't speak to HD's but my experience with the Victory belt has been nothing but positive.

 

[RCinNC]

And I must admit I omitted the part that the belt that split from the pebbles was from a stupid fire road in Death Valley. I warned my buddy but he decided to do it anyway. He got stuck in some mud and I picked out all the pebbles I could. When we got on the highway I followed him and smelled burning rubber. I thought it was his tire. dang belt split. It did get us over 100 miles back home though. Heck man I bet any drive system has its issues. Only reason I'm against the belts is because it's such a pain to service them on the Harley's and Indians.

I'm with you there, as far as belt drive + off pavement riding. When Buell came out with their version of an ADV bike back in 2008 and it had a belt drive, I thought that was a bad choice, even with the belt shroud.

 

[squarebore]

I did a 120k on two Harley’s. Never a belt problem or replacement. And I agree belt over chain but not a n the dirt. One advantage with belts and chain is no shaft or side torque. It’s pretty subtle on the S10.

Just to add to the friendly debate, I've seen more shaft drive failures than belts and chains combined. Not on the S10 but other adventure bikes.

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[RCinNC]

Yes, squarebore, but I doubt that was due to a flaw in the entire concept of shaft drives (which have been around since 1901), and more a design flaw in a specific drive with a specific company. I'm guessing we're talking about final drives on the mid 2000's GS, but maybe I'm jumping to conclusions

 

[squarebore]

Yes, squarebore, but I doubt that was due to a flaw in the entire concept of shaft drives (which have been around since 1901), and more a design flaw in a specific drive with a specific company. I'm guessing we're talking about final drives on the mid 2000's GS, but maybe I'm jumping to conclusions

Haha but no not specific to BMW. My s10 shaft drive didn't fail but developed a leak because water got to the seals and needed repair. Others have had similiar issues. I like my drive shaft but chain is my choice for reliability and easy to fix when on an adventure.

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[Xclimation]

Very rarely will a defend a Harley....I've never heard of a belt failure.

 

[EricV]

Belts fail all the time. So do chains. Shaft drives much less so, and most of the failures have nothing to do with the shaft drive, (except for u-joint failures), it's more often due to the flawed design of a poorly supported wheel.

Some of the dichotomy between Ballisticexchris and SuckSqueezeBangBlow is all about location. Riding in the West with different types of road construction and repairs and a lot more loose crap, belts suffer more often. Individual choices and aftermarket parts/lack of guards also play a part. I put a bunch of miles on my stock '05 Road King w/o ever needing a belt. My buddy's aftermarket Trike conversion ate belts. Seemed like every longer trip I went with him we ended up having to hunt down a belt and a shop to change it.

Riding in the East I've seen less belt issues with the riders I've encountered or ridden with. I suspect it's partly due to the methods of road construction/repair and the nature of the soils. Aside from sand, I see a lot less loose soil in the East. The West is full of blowing soil and crap on the roads. Never mind the fun of sandstorms in UT/AZ/CA etc.

We're more than a little off topic for this thread.

The Nealy tire repair kit is a version of the classic sticky string repair. Same techniques and materials. Nice kit.

Stop&Go plug kits are just rubber mushroom plugs. There is no bonding to the tire, ever. It's just held in the hole with friction and the mushroom head. If the head gets cut by steel cord in the tires, it can come off and the remaining rubber plug usually leaves the tire. How fast depends on the size of the original hole. From Stop&Go's web site:

NOTICE: The accepted industry standard recommended by the RMA (Rubber Manufacturers Association of America) requires that an injured tire be demounted, the interior inspected, the injury drilled out, and a plug and repair unit installed by a trained professional.

No where on their site do they claim it as a permanent repair.

FWIW, note that the Stop&Go brand also sells sticky string kits at this time. That is not what people generally refer to when discussing the Stop&Go kits.

 

[RCinNC]

There's an awful lot more mass in a Harley trike conversion than there would be on something like a Road King, and any belt is going to be under more strain. If that trike ate belts every time you went on a long trip, I'd be inclined to think the belt either wasn't rated to handle the loads being placed on it, or there was an alignment problem with his aftermarket conversion. Belts are wear items, so naturally at some point one of them is going to either wear beyond specs or outright break, but to have repeated belt failures sounds like a mismatch between belt and bike, or a flawed conversion, not an issue with the belt itself.

 

[EricV]

There's an awful lot more mass in a Harley trike conversion than there would be on something like a Road King, and any belt is going to be under more strain. If that trike ate belts every time you went on a long trip, I'd be inclined to think the belt either wasn't rated to handle the loads being placed on it, or there was an alignment problem with his aftermarket conversion. Belts are wear items, so naturally at some point one of them is going to either wear beyond specs or outright break, but to have repeated belt failures sounds like a mismatch between belt and bike, or a flawed conversion, not an issue with the belt itself.

I'm familiar with everything you're talking about. No alignment issues. (Lehman even checked the alignment for free one year during Sturgis when the replaced his belt) He was always picking up debris and shredding the belt. I've run belts for a looong time on HDs, but was never an open primary guy and like my rear belt guards. The trike limits what you can do with guards and this guy had a preference for bling over function, which didn't help. Hit a few miles of loose pea gravel road construction and I could usually count on having to go find him a belt.

 

[RCinNC]

Oh, I see what you're saying, Eric. I thought you meant they would just spontaneously break.