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[Spenny818]

H guys,

I just got back from my first ride on my gently used 2013 S ZF11.4. Unfortunately I only got 80km before the belt broke. The bike only has 2300km on it so I was quite surprised it only lasted this long. The dealer is 3.5 hours away for me, but they have agreed to ship me a replacement belt. Anyone have any experience replacing the belt themselves? Or is this something best left for the dealer?

Thanks!

[dkw12002]

Should be as easy loosening the rear wheel nut and following the direction in section 5-15 of the manual and slide the rear wheel forward to shorten the distance between the two sprockets, then place the new belt on the front sprocket, then on the rear and adjusting and tightening  to specs.  I have 5800 miles on my 2013 S and the belt has stretched a tad, but isn't frayed or worn.

[Spenny818]

Would you not need to remove the swingarm from the frame to get the belt over the motor pulley?

[DesignerDan]

Yep, the swing arm must come off. To get the swing arm off, the motor either has to come completely out or just released from the frame to allow for clearance for a wrench to loosen the swing arm bolts. It's a length process. I'm surprised your belt failed so early. Did debris get caught in it? Was the tension correct? My belt has 15k miles on it and shows no sign of wear.

[Richard230]

I agree.  You would think that either the belt picked up a rock, or there is a defect in one of the sprockets, or that the belt was defective, or it received a cut when the bike was being assembled.  In any case, I would think that this should be covered by Zero's warranty, considering the low mileage.  A belt failing that quickly would not be normal wear and tear.

[Spenny818]

Zero has agreed to replace the belt under warranty. They sure do have excellent service! As far as the circumstances on how it broke, I'm not sure to be honest. I was just out riding in the city, came out of a corner and rolled on the accelerator. There was no power and I noticed the speedo shot up to 130km/h. It was on pavement so I can't really see it as being debris. I have never checked the tension on the belt since I just picked it up from a dealer 2 weeks ago. Anyways, I was sent the dealer instructions on how to install the belt, and it looks like I will just need to remove the rear fender, the rear brake pedal bolt, and the rear swingarm bolts. This gives you enough room to pull the swingarm away from the frame and slide the belt over the motor. I'll keep you posted on how the home install goes!

[dkw12002]

Well dang. It looks on my bike like the belt would just slide between the swing arm and the sprocket without removing anything, but I guess not. It sure would be close. Seems like you could twist the belt sideways a little and still get it into place without taking off the swing arm. No?

[NoiseBoy]

You aren't thinking this through dkw. The belt is continuous and the spar where the swingarm attaches to the shock prevents you from putting it around both sprockets.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, its the big difference in changing belts and chains.
Chains you can break, connect the new to old, pull the new one through, remove the old chain and then rivet the new chain, without taking anything else apart (other than loosening the tension on the wheel)

Belts on the other hand require a strip down of the rear of the bike.

[dkw12002]

Oh, right. Bummer. Replacing the belt is not user friendly. At least the belt is meant to last at least 25,000 miles according to the manual. Seems like someone could come up with a master-link kind of like zip ties to make it easier.

[Richard230]

Harley used to make an emergency patch for their belt drive when it was first introduced.  But I hear it didn't work all that well and H-D owners discovered that their belts would last a lot longer than they had expected and eventually forgot about belts breaking.

[LiveandLetDrive]

I'm not sure if this is true of all Zero models but on the FX there are set screws in the swingarm nuts on the inside.  Yes, they put set screws into threads!  Face, meet palm.  Don't forget to undo those before you try to crank out the swingarm bolts, you'll see the allen head on one of the faces of the nut.  My factory chain lasted a very short time but the belt never showed any signs of premature decay.

[vchampain]

My belt broke today too, in the middle of the traffic on my zero S 2013, 2000 km or so...
And I just had it back since 2 days after the main board burnt and waited 3 weeks to be replaced. I really feel tired with all this...

[Spenny818]

I am still waiting on my belt to come in. Hoping to have it in the next day or 2. I have the swingarm pulled apart so that once it comes in I just need to pop the belt on and reassemble. While I've got it apart, would anyone be interested in photos of the install process?

[spelunker]

Photo would be nice.