timing belts

[manwithredbike]

it's my first year owning my m900 so first time servicing. bike is 98 but has less than 4k miles. i'm not sure of service history so am doing a belt change + service while it's too cold and salty to ride. any suggestions for suppliers of new timing belts. is it straight forward to the dealers or does someone sell better stronger ones like kevlars etc ??

[sjr999r]

Dealers/or specialist. Genuine DUCATI PARTS,kevlar belts............dont think anyone else does them.........no offence.....dont **** about, fit genuine,peace of mind,its expensive when they snap,G E N U I N E PA R T S...............please, my xmas pledge to u! its a kinda genral view if your not sure,fit new ones.
If they snap on a water cooled ducati engine,your looking at least 1k per pot to fix!
PS ducati kevlar belts have,red writing on them,if my mermory serves me right.

[Pedro]

Belts from your local Duke dealer should be about £25 and they only take half an hour to fit.

Ped

[snakey]

are only about £12 each ;) -just be careful when fitting, the allen bolts used on the tensioners (to quote Riders mechanic) are made of kangaroo s**t, just done mine and they have rounded inside - next time they will have to be drilled out and some stainless ones used. just wondering why the 13mm bolts that are on my old 750s were swapped for allen bolts in the first place appart from weight.
Pete.

[dlloyduk]

Where's the best place to buy belts £12,£25 a pair??? I was quoted around £60 a pair for my 620 from a few places. Whats the difference from the 600 to the 620 apart from a about £35????? :confused:

[NattyBoy]

The belts are manufactured by gates and allegedly they are the same belts used one of the small engined renault clios..but guess what..the clio ones are about half the price ....!!! Funny that..

Regardless...I wouldnt want to risk it for the sake of £20 - genuine bits every time..

Nat

[Fosse Foxfight]

I think what the chap meant is...is there a belt upgrade from the standard belts...a perfectly decent question really. Ducati like every other manufacturer uses component suppliers and as such the quality of the so called "genuine" Ducati part can never be guaranteed. I would imagine that if you look in the US market you will find some higher quality belts.
The genuine belts I have little doubt will be sufficient....the key thing with belts is not how much mileage they do, but how long they stand idle in the same position, hence the 2 years or mileage rule, the assumption being that if you dont do around 10k a year then you obviously leave your bike standing a lot so for thos people its worth changing your belts every 12-18 months for the sake of 25 quid.
Fenner for instance would fit this category, liley to be of higher quality than a stock Ducati part.

http://www.fennerprecision.com/fhtbelts.phtml


ta ra

and you can buy them from here:

http://www.firstchoicedirect.com/home1.html

or if you have a local bearing place then take your old belt there and get them to look up the width, tooth pitch and tooth size. Most good bearing suppliers will stock Fenner products

[CK & AK]

what Nat & FFF said :)

we also change ones on any bike that comes in with no recognisable SH, or any of ours that have stood for more than 4 months without running...........so both race bikes will be done again in mid feb.

C

ps: Natty - AK sells those renault ones (can get them for under a fiver!), and we did compare then to the OEM belts - there is a slight difference, so he wont use them, only the Ducati ones - and he is the proverbial 'Mr Tightwad' :lol:

[Fosse Foxfight]

If as Nat said the belts are made by Gates then they are good quality, if the Clio belts are Gates then ditto, although bear in mind that even within a company there are such things as graded bins. When we developed the machine tooling for the Sierra engine blocks, we supplied Ford with 3 sets of machines, one would turn out with rapidity components that would be fitted to fleet cars, one would be fitted to stock models and one would be fitted to the higher end engines, the "i"s and the Ghias and the GTXs and so forth. The difference is purely in tolerances not really about materials or overall quality. Most companies employ this bin grading so you have to be careful using car stuff, although most car manufacturers specify about 80k for a belt change, so they cant be that bad :p

[manwithredbike]

thanks for that. it sounds like stick to the genuine parts.
it was never a price problem - just a quality issue . i hope to put plenty of miles up next year.
ps found what looks like really good step by step advice on all sorts of maintenance jobs on the ducatisuite website.

[manwithredbike]

finally got new belts on (from ducati dealer). half an hour max and half of that was trying to get the middle cover off past the the oil line and wiring loom! bought new quality allen set - to be sure not to round heads on the bolts.
thanks for the advice

[gary tompkins]

are only about £12 each ;) -just be careful when fitting, the allen bolts used on the tensioners (to quote Riders mechanic) are made of kangaroo s**t, just done mine and they have rounded inside - next time they will have to be drilled out and some stainless ones used. just wondering why the 13mm bolts that are on my old 750s were swapped for allen bolts in the first place appart from weight.
Pete.

Amen to that. They really are made of monkey metal, as are a lot of fasteners on monsters. Mine rounded on the 600 and I only just managed to get them out with an impact driver. Replaced both with high tensile hex head screws - sorted!

Not tackled the belts myself on the 900 as yet, but will consider doing the same bolt swap to prevent aggro in future.

[snakey]

I'm going to put stainless allen bolts in next time - they are good as long as they are made from steel not plastacine ! :idea: be careful where you use stainless though - it is not suitable in all cases as i found to my cost, on the bonnie that got nicked i had just bought a set of original engine bolts to replace the stainless ones that i had done the rebuild with, the head and cylinder base bolts in particular- for a few reasons you cannot get the higher amount of torque to keep them tight and the bike developed an oil leak shortly after the re build (and no, triumphs don't always leak & i've heard all those old jokes anyway)

Pete.