Well crap, new belt needed

[Navydad]

This little tidbit of info is for the guy that is sooner or later going to need a new belt. For information my Spyder is a 2015 RT and if correct it is the same as 2014 through 2018 or 19 as far as basic construction is concerned.
The missus and I were headed home after a Patriot Guard mission. It was just after 11pm and we were on a four lane, 70 mph road, traffic was very light as we were in a very rural area. It was cloudy and darker than the inside of your hat and we were around twenty miles from home. BANG! my first thought was a tire went and at that same instant my wife shouted "we lost a tire" so I slowed to around 50 and it was obvious that the tires were fine. "We need to pull over and stop" I am NOT pulling over on a 70mph highway in the pitch black in the middle of nowhere. The bike is running, no codes, no flat tire, I am going home. We kept it at 55 or a bit less and got home okay.
Next morning I found the missing teeth and other damage to the belt. Stone? piece of road debris? I have no clue and at 11pm in the dark I wasn't going to go hunting.
This write up is about my belt changing experience. If you can change oil you can change a belt. It took me an hour and a half from start to wash up and most of that was removing/installing plastic panels. The biggest job is removing everything on the left (belt) side of the bike. There are tons of videos showing how to do this. I don't make videos. I'm not turning an hour and half job into a six hour job by making and editing videos. I am 68 and cannot be wasting hours on that stuff. Get the left side stripped and get the rear wheel off the ground enough to be able to spin the wheel. If your belt tension and alignment were okay to begin with you DO NOT have to remove or loosen anything on the rear of the bike. Turn the rear tire backwards while pulling outward on the belt. WATCH YOUR FINGERS. The belt will move off the pulley just fine. Carefully inspect the pulleys for damage. Mine were fine, but inspect anyway. Put the new belt on the front pulley and while holding the belt at the bottom of the rear pulley rotate the rear tire forward. The new belt will walk onto the pulley just fine. Now you have the new belt installed at the same settings as the old belt with a lot less cussing and drinking. I installed everything using blue loctite on the fasteners and took a test spin. Back to smooth and quiet.
By the way as a side note. I have read where some folks have removed the underside plastic panels so oil changes can be simpler and they claim the bike runs cooler. Not me, not after what I noticed this morning. I did a thorough inspection since I had all of the left side stripped. Looking for dirt, oil, leaks, bugs, dogs, small children, etc. I noticed that the under panel on the left side supplies a lot of protection for the front pulley as far as debris getting up there. Yeah, I know, it didn't keep my belt from damage, but maybe my damage came from the rear? The front pulley in the pictures is the new one from the recall procedure.

IMG_20230520_115411_01.jpg PXL_20230520_145906332.jpg PXL_20230520_145910494.jpg PXL_20230520_145934742.jpg

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

This little tidbit of info is for the guy that is sooner or later going to need a new belt. For information my Spyder is a 2015 RT and if correct it is the same as 2014 through 2018 or 19 as far as basic construction is concerned.
The missus and I were headed home after a Patriot Guard mission. It was just after 11pm and we were on a four lane, 70 mph road, traffic was very light as we were in a very rural area. It was cloudy and darker than the inside of your hat and we were around twenty miles from home. BANG! my first thought was a tire went and at that same instant my wife shouted "we lost a tire" so I slowed to around 50 and it was obvious that the tires were fine. "We need to pull over and stop" I am NOT pulling over on a 70mph highway in the pitch black in the middle of nowhere. The bike is running, no codes, no flat tire, I am going home. We kept it at 55 or a bit less and got home okay.
Next morning I found the missing teeth and other damage to the belt. Stone? piece of road debris? I have no clue and at 11pm in the dark I wasn't going to go hunting.
This write up is about my belt changing experience. If you can change oil you can change a belt. It took me an hour and a half from start to wash up and most of that was removing/installing plastic panels. The biggest job is removing everything on the left (belt) side of the bike. There are tons of videos showing how to do this. I don't make videos. I'm not turning an hour and half job into a six hour job by making and editing videos. I am 68 and cannot be wasting hours on that stuff. Get the left side stripped and get the rear wheel off the ground enough to be able to spin the wheel. If your belt tension and alignment were okay to begin with you DO NOT have to remove or loosen anything on the rear of the bike. Turn the rear tire backwards while pulling outward on the belt. WATCH YOUR FINGERS. The belt will move off the pulley just fine. Carefully inspect the pulleys for damage. Mine were fine, but inspect anyway. Put the new belt on the front pulley and while holding the belt at the bottom of the rear pulley rotate the rear tire forward. The new belt will walk onto the pulley just fine. Now you have the new belt installed at the same settings as the old belt with a lot less cussing and drinking. I installed everything using blue loctite on the fasteners and took a test spin. Back to smooth and quiet.
By the way as a side note. I have read where some folks have removed the underside plastic panels so oil changes can be simpler and they claim the bike runs cooler. Not me, not after what I noticed this morning. I did a thorough inspection since I had all of the left side stripped. Looking for dirt, oil, leaks, bugs, dogs, small children, etc. I noticed that the under panel on the left side supplies a lot of protection for the front pulley as far as debris getting up there. Yeah, I know, it didn't keep my belt from damage, but maybe my damage came from the rear? The front pulley in the pictures is the new one from the recall procedure.

IMG_20230520_115411_01.jpg PXL_20230520_145906332.jpg PXL_20230520_145910494.jpg PXL_20230520_145934742.jpg

Glad you got home safely .... It may not be a co-incidence that you had recently been at your dealer ..... I think your belt may have been OVER tightened. Back in the beginning BRP was way over tightening the Drive belts ... so much so " shafts & splines " were failing.... However the belts appeared to survive, From earlo I run my drive belts ( on 3 Spyders ) much lower than BRP specs allow .... JMHO .... Mike

[UtahPete]

Nice writeup and photos. Other than the bang, which was probably the belt losing a beat on the pulley, what other symptoms were there after the initial belt damage? Would you have known there was a problem to be addressed?

[Navydad]

Glad you got home safely .... It may not be a co-incidence that you had recently been at your dealer ..... I think your belt may have been OVER tightened. Back in the beginning BRP was way over tightening the Drive belts ... so much so " shafts & splines " were failing.... However the belts appeared to survive, From earlo I run my drive belts ( on 3 Spyders ) much lower than BRP specs allow .... JMHO .... Mike

I checked alignment and belt tension immediately after the recall was done and they were in the same position as before the recall plus I have put over fifteen hundred miles on since the recall with no issue. The highway we were on has a very high number of log haulers and rock and gravel haulers. Logging and several gravel operations in the area so that highway is known for debris.

[Navydad]

Nice writeup and photos. Other than the bang, which was probably the belt losing a beat on the pulley, what other symptoms were there after the initial belt damage? Would you have known there was a problem to be addressed?

Yes sir UtahPete. There will be no doubt that there is a problem. You feel the jerk, bumb, vibration, etc. and it is VERY noticeable in the foot pegs or floorboards. The slower you go the less you will feel. The bike felt relatively smooth at 55 with just an occasional bump. Once we made it to our exit and went through town at 35 or slower we felt nothing.

[pegasus1300]

Were you just missing the one tooth or were there others?

[Navydad]

Were you just missing the one tooth or were there others?

Just one tooth completely gone and three others damaged. There was a groove all the way around the inside of the belt. It looked like something had been stuck in a pulley long enough to make the groove. At 70mph it wouldn't take but a second for the entire belt to go over an object in a pulley. I learned two things. 1. It isn't difficult to change a belt on the RT. 2. You WILL know when/if there is a problem with the belt.

[ollicat]

How many miles did you have on that belt before failure?

[Navydad]

How many miles did you have on that belt before failure?

45,000, but the belt didn't fail. It was damaged by a stone or other foreign object. Other than damaged areas the belt looked new. No cracks or suspicious areas at all. I'm confident these belts are capable 100,000 miles or more if not damaged.