Clutch rattle after belt primary installation

[57pan]

I recently installed a belt primary drive and now, when I pull the clutch in, the clutch makes a terrible racket. It's perfectly quiet and smooth when the clutch is engaged so I'm thinking that the clutch plates must be rattling when the pressure is released. I have the long roller bearing kit and a clutch tamer but both of those were also part of the setup on the chain primary. It did not do this before the conversion to belt drive. Any ideas?

[caschnd1]

This is a common issue with belt drive setups. You are probably also running the steel plates without "buffers". These plates will rattle around causing the metallic clatter you are hearing. You can switch to steels with buffers but the trade-off (there's always a catch) is that your clutch won't release as cleanly. I don't care for the noise much, but I've learned to live with it.

If you have money to burn, SuperMax makes a belt drive that uses a clutch basket made of a synthetic plastic material. They claim it will outlast the aluminum clutch baskets. Because the platic material won't transfer sound waves as readily as aluminum, it's virtually silent. BUT... and it's a big one... $600!! Another upside is that SuperMax offers numerous choices for primary drive ratios. Something that is sorely lacking with the other belt drive options.

-Craig

[57pan]

Well, I think the $600 solution is out of the picture, so I guess I will have to learn to live with it.
But, does anyone have a technical reason (or even a theory) as to why the belt drive setup would be so prone to this vibration when the chain is not?

[caschnd1]

I've been told the excess noise is caused by the aluminum clutch basket. The stock clutch basket is steel and does not transfer the sound in the same manner. If you take your steel plate insert it in the clutch basket and jiggle it around, you'll here the familiar sound you are talking about with the belt drive. Do the same thing with the steel clutch basket and it's a totally different sound.
Maybe we have a materials engineer here who can explain further.

This will take you right to the "Silent Drive" product page. They have other products too. http://www.supermax.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;