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Scottykrein
| Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018 - 04:19 pm: |
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Pulling into work this morning. Luckily I've been hauling around my old one that I pulled off about 10000 miles ago. Also lucky that my tool kit has everything I need to do surgery on the old girl. Anyway, while shopping for the new belt I noticed St. Paul H.D has Free Spirits tensioners. It seems like its been a hot minute since that argument happened here according to the search function. Does anyone have a reliability update on using one on their Uly? I'm not saying I need it.... But I am a sucker for parts that come in red. I noticed some we're having failure issues. |
Ratbuell
| Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018 - 05:06 pm: |
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Just open up the mounting holes on your factory tensioner, allowing it to sag just a bit compared to the factory setting... How'd you break it? Hard shift? Random material tear? Clean break? Puncture damage? |
Scottykrein
| Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018 - 05:46 pm: |
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Yeah I looked at the widening thing, not sure I want to try that. I kinda just want a new shiny toy, I just don't want it to break in a few thousand miles. Clean break. No holes or debris, I suppose I've just been hooning it too much lately. Lot's of hard shifts. Also been running a lot more off road runs. Can't say enough about the TKC 80's. Reminds me of another thing. PSA, check your header studs/nuts. My front we're backed off to the point that the seal was rattling around. Took lots of patience, PB blaster, and little twists not to break those studs. New ones on the way. |
Ratbuell
| Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018 - 06:04 pm: |
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I've broken 2 belts on my Uly, both on hard 1-2 shifts - both absolutely my fault. After the second, when I pulled my roadside-replacement, pre-stretched used belt to put back in storage under the topcase, I drilled out the holes in the stock tensioner by one drill bit size. Noticably looser belt - well, not "looser" but not as tight - and I haven't had any issues since. That was about 10k miles ago I think? |
Pitchondesign
| Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2018 - 09:25 pm: |
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I have a Free Spirit Tensioner. Has only about 6k miles on it. Seems to work as advertised, and is very well made. I left the tension spring unchanged from the recommended setting and all is well. The belt looks fine, but it did before I put it on. I think it's an elegant solution. Enlarging the hole on the standard tensioner also work, I just like this better |
Ftd
| Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2018 - 10:07 pm: |
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I have a FST on my 06 Uly. It probably has 30K miles on it. Have never snapped a belt. So I guess it works??? It does look neat. |
Cupcake_mike
| Posted on Sunday, September 02, 2018 - 07:01 am: |
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FTD...dont hold your breath, i've snapped two, each after 30-35k... |
Natexlh1000
| Posted on Tuesday, September 04, 2018 - 03:50 pm: |
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A few have had the free spirits thing itself fail too. Have they upgraded their design? |
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