K7GLE
New member
After installing a rewired HES last week (thanks, GSADDICT!) I installed & adjusted a new alternator belt. Torqueing from behind was a PITA -- my clicker in-lb torque wrench doesn't click in the loosening direction, and my beam-type in-lb wrench is not the best tool for this adjustment...you have to be in the back of the bike to read it, and in the front of the bike to tighten the lockdown bolts, and it's easy to tension the belt too much. So I noted the twist resistance and deflection of the belt when the beam wrench registered 70(-ish) in-lb and locked down the belt tension there.
OK, whining time is over.
Test ride was fine, but I kept wondering whether the tension was really correct, so I bought an M8 acorn nut and re-adjusted the belt today. Much easier (and the twist- and deflection-tests looked about the same as before).
BUT - when I fired the bike up it made a real racket - a loud and kind of shallow knocking, obviously coming from the alternator area, at revs below about 3K. Medium-length story short, I re-read the maint. manual and Clymer, and "slackened off" the right side (looking from the front) lockdown nut, which I had torqued to 20 Nm like the other two holding nuts. Noise disappeared.
My question - WTF? Why would that nut, torqued to 20 Nm, cause that kind of noise? Does torqueing it twist the alternator pulley out of the plane of the crank pulley?
OK, whining time is over.
Test ride was fine, but I kept wondering whether the tension was really correct, so I bought an M8 acorn nut and re-adjusted the belt today. Much easier (and the twist- and deflection-tests looked about the same as before).
BUT - when I fired the bike up it made a real racket - a loud and kind of shallow knocking, obviously coming from the alternator area, at revs below about 3K. Medium-length story short, I re-read the maint. manual and Clymer, and "slackened off" the right side (looking from the front) lockdown nut, which I had torqued to 20 Nm like the other two holding nuts. Noise disappeared.
My question - WTF? Why would that nut, torqued to 20 Nm, cause that kind of noise? Does torqueing it twist the alternator pulley out of the plane of the crank pulley?