Hello, I bought a new/leftover 2006 lt80 for my daughter this past spring. It has about 20 hours of run time so far and had been flawless up until our last ride this past week when I noticed it making odd sounds coming from the left side of the motor at idle.

I pulled the recoil/inspection cover off the belt cover and noticed the drive belt is slapping the top and bottom of the case making what sounds like a metallic sound. I can make the noise stop but placing a gloved finger lightly on top of the belt when it's idling...

I'm positive it didn't make the noise the first 20 hours of use. As soon as the rpms come up the belt tightens and the noise goes away and I can some times hear a knock/slap sound as soon as the machine starts to move. My daughter also told me she noticed a squealing sound when she was climbing some of the bigger hills on our last trail ride.

To me, it looks like the belt is sitting too far down in the front drive clutch causing excessive slack/slop in the belt. I've searched and think maybe the rollers in the front drive clutch are shot.

Ideas?

Thanks in advance and sorry about the long post.

Lemmers

 

You'll have to get into the clutchs and see what's going on.
At 20 hrs. rollers should not be bad.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I tore it down tonight, but haven't take the variator and/or rear clutch apart yet. I didn't find anything unusual inside the belt case, the belt isn't worn and the variator wear surfaces look good. I can tell it's working as I can see the mark near the center from idling and near the outer edge when running. (It all looks new as it only has 20 hours on it...)

It looks like the belt is only running on the outer edge of the rear clutch, which makes sense to me as I've got the throttle stop set a hair past half throttle with the exhaust and carb restrictors removed. I can easily pull the rear driven surface out by hand so it's not locked up.

At this point, after turning it by hand several times, the belt looks tight, with little play, but I can see the marks on top of the cover, about 2" in front of the rear clutch where it's rubbing...

Is there an acceptable way to remove the variator and rear clutch nut without using the suzuki flywheel tool the service manual shows or an impact (I don't have either)

Thanks

 

"Is there an acceptable way to remove the variator and rear clutch nut without using the suzuki flywheel tool the service manual shows or an impact (I don't have either)"

Well,,,,It can be done...The fins on the $90. clutch face are at stake.
Get yourself a nice elec impact or the like. You're going to need it anyways.

 

I actually bought an 18V DeWalt 1/2" cordless impact this morning at Home Depot! It's sweet and had no problem buzzing the drive face nut off.

Now for the bad news, all six of the rollers had some flat spotting on them. Two had a 1/8" wide spots, two had spots about 1/16" wide and two had some minor scratching on them. The drive face plate and the back of the moveable drive face all look good. There was only a tiny amount of grease on each roller. I ordered 18 rollers from my local dealer and am having them over nighted from 'Zuki, they should be here Thursday morning as I missed the cutoff to order today... (I figure if I've got them in stock, I won't have any more problems).

I flipped the quad up on end and cut the foot peg cross brace in half with a cutoff wheel and I'm going to have a friend machine a connector out of aluminum tomorrow. It should make future inspections and maintenance a lot easier.

What causes the rollers to become flat spotted at only 20 hours of gentle ride time? The trails we ride are quite slow, rocky and hilly...

Thanks.

 

Don't know. One of those things I guess.
Now that you have the pegs cut, you can get in there after a few hours of riding for maint.