I agree that in general, the heavier the machine, the easier / better it pulls... & yes I also agree that the tightness of the belt, & the being able to get the tires spinning if necessary, is critical to belt life, & keeping from burning in flat spots in the belt ...

BTW... IMO, cultivating all day, every day for a week, would be hard on any ATV... not that they couldn't do it, it's just more than they were ever intended to do... if you were going to seriously work a quad like that, the shortest possible tires ( to lower the over all gear ratio ), would help take lots of the added stress from the drive train ( I'd probably pull in 2 wd, just to limit front end wear, & set up the cultivator so that it wasn't any more than the quad could pull in 2 wd )... I regularly run a set of 22" X 12.5" X 9" Interco TSL's on the rear of my quad, & it'll pull "houses" all day with the traction they are capable of, & the lower gear ratio they provide... IMO, pulling that cultivator is going to be hard on any quad... the belts are a very cheap replacement part when comparing it to the worn parts of a manual transmission, or the fried disks / plates of a hydro tranny like the Honda's... even replacing the whole primary or secondary clutches, is cheaper than splitting a case to work on the internals of a manual tranny... plus ther are now several shops that are reconditioning the clutches for a fraction of the cost of replacement, & offering much improved performance at the same time...

BTW #2... I'm in the process of making & patenting some gear reduction hubs for ATV's... the prototype units should be completed before next springs Mud Nationals... they will drop the final gear ratio from the hubs 2 to 1... something like this, could turn the ATV into a real plow horse... between you & me, & who ever else is reading... they even share several components ( like bearings ), with common agricultural disks... & they will unbolt from the quad in 5-10 minutes, allowing regular ( fun recreational use ) shortly after work...

 

Thanks for the info and good luck on your project.

Better look out, Bombardier and their magazine buddies are not going to like you next year (or this year either).[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]