A friend of mine has a stock (except for tires) 650 that has started squeaking when he first hits the throttle...He took it to our local incompetent Kaw dealer and they said this is the first one that they had seen do this and they did not know how to fix. I need to tell my friend where to tell them to start. I told him that they needed to call Kaw and find out what the problem was. Any ideas?

 

I don't think it is a "problem". The belt made for the 650 may be prone to making a sqeak, since a couple of other people said theirs squeak also.

Normal CVT operation requires that the belt act as the clutch, therefor it slips against the drive pulley for a bit until the quad gets moving.

Other people have just replaced the belt and the noise went away. Maybe adjusting it will help.

Tell him to put a bunch of miles on it and see what happens. Other people said their squeak went away after a few miles.

 

I would not worry about it , some squeak and some just don't for some reason , but if you think about it , when at idle the pully is turning and the belt is not , so when the spinning pully grabs the still belt it is easy to see how they can squeak for a second till both are at the same speed , have a good day.

 

Well, the dealer took the cover off of the belt housing today and found a VERY loose belt according to what they told my friend. They told him that they will have to shim it to fix it. We are going to go take a look at it in the morning. I think he should ask for a new belt to be installed and covered under warranty...What do you think? He only has about 200 miles on his machine.

 

Can anyone tell me if their top end speed also suffered w/belt squeak? Mine just started to squeak but only after I ride for about 10-15 min. and the top speed is around 55 or so. (which is not normal). I have it @ the dealer now and he said that he had to call Kawi but I told him he may want to check out this forum since evidently you guys already have experienced most of these problems. Dealer says that they have never even taken the cover off of a 650 before so I encouraged them to go ahead and call Kawi. (Or maybe I should call Kawi and fix it myself) I dunnno!!

 

I told my local dealer about this forum and they laughed because they are WAY too smart to rely on people that do not work for Kawasaki! In my opinion they could learn a lot in here.

 

THe problem is caused by a loose belt which makes the machine start with the belt to high in the clutch, kinda like starting out in second gear. The solution is to adjust the secondary clutch by using spacer washers. This will effect top end also. It is perfectly normal for a belt to be adjusted after the machine has 200 miles on it, my (Yuck) Polaris also needed this done to it.

 

224 miles and the belt started squealing again on take off, time for a shim job.

 

Bonzi...After the adjustment, what did it do to the top speed?

 

When a belt is loose its the same as being to long, it will shift out all the way in the primary but not go all the way down in the secondary resulting in loss of top end.