Replacing belts - Ducati.ms

originalebm · Jan 25th, 2010, 2:49 pm

Hey folks. I'm replacing my belts with the Exact fit belts sold by CA-Cycleworks and I was wondering if this was ok. It seems that the belt tension for new belts in the service manual is tight... like way tight. It says to be at 140hz. I tightened them down that much but felt they were too tight so I loosened them to about 120-125hz do you think that this is going to be sufficient or should I crank them back to 140? The old belts were pretty damn loose, probably not even 90hz.

Also does anyone else find working on the valves that it is just exponetially easier to remove the cylinder heads to perform the work? Just wondering.

originalebm · Jan 25th, 2010, 9:50 pm

Just found out that 140 is wrong and that 110 is right. whew.

dave2riff · Jan 25th, 2010, 9:52 pm

I believe there was a service update that relaxed the NEW belt tension to
120 Hz (+/- 5 Hz). Used belt tension is lower at 100 Hz (+/- 5 Hz) since the
used belts are already worn-in and won't stretch like a new belt generally does.

Keep in mind that the tension goes _up_ when the engine is hot due to the
expansion of the aluminum engine castings that the belt pulleys are mounted to.
The best advice for new belts I've heard is to just ballpark the tension around
105-110, leave the belt covers off, ride it for a few hours, then carefully set
the cold tension to 100-105 Hz again. Shouldn't have to worry about them
for a good 7500 miles at least.