Gates Carbon Drive - How to Adjust Belt Tension + Review
Vložit
- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- Let's take a look at how to properly tension the Gates Carbon Drive CenterTrack CDX belt on a Spot brand Five Points bike.
Gates front sprocket 55T: amzn.to/2fuLmix
Gates belt 118T: amzn.to/2xGCHlg
Gates belt tension gauge: amzn.to/2fBXYrW
SRAM i-Motion 3: amzn.to/2xGKtvF
After about a hundred miles of running our Five Points bike with a 500 watt, 48 volt, 21 amp front hub motor electric bike kit, we've noticed that the belt drive feels a little loose. On this bike you need to loosen the axle mount bolts and tighten the tensioner bolt. You can use the Gates Carbon Drive smartphone app and pluck the belt like a guitar to measure it's tension.
They should make belts in a bunch of bright colors, would look pretty cool on a bike and be great “marketing” for the company. Like when Apple first came out with white headphones it was a huge way to market a product and for people to ask questions like, “what is that?”
Thanks for sharing! First time checking tension on chain, so great to know Gates have an app...genius! :)
sure thing. Sometimes the Gates app can be glitchy fyi, but you can also use a guitar tuning app or something similar.
Ive found this app to be very dependant on having a completely quiet garage, when trying to do mine i was getting results on my tablet from cars driving by without me even pinging the belt, i gave up in the end.
Note: Shows old version of the app. New version is a bit clunkier to use.
A friend just picked up a couple of Bird eBikes and the belts seem really tight. I ran a Gates belt on a 22 tooth brushless motor sprocket and I never had the belt that tight and I was pushing several thousand watts through one belt for over 5k miles on an electric scooter.
Thank you very helpful
I tightened the belt and it made shifting stiffer. Is there a way to make shifting really easy?
I have a Luna fixed stealth, there's only a tensioner on one side. Also don't know what I should loosen before making the adjustment. Can you advise?
The Luna stealth has a Nexus 3 IGH right? You'll first need to loosen the bolt at the rear of the Nexus 3 mechanism that covers the axle nut on the drive side then it should slide right off the axle. Then you'll want to loosen the drive side axle nut before you can adjust the tensioner.
It looks like the tensioner they use has a hex head bolt and a nut... according to this video ( czcams.com/video/XRfyqR6uJAU/video.html ) you shouldn't turn the hex bolt, only turn the nut that's on it. Turning the nut clockwise should pull the axle back and tighten the belt, start with very slight (1/8 turn) increments.
He does a pretty good job showing you the whole process in that video so definitely watch it, but keep in mind he's showing you how to loosen the belt not tighten it. He also removes the belt for some reason though I think just for demonstration - you probably don't need to do that.
I also saw your review video, were you able to get the correct chainring bolt? It's hard to see in the shot but it looks like your LBS sold you the wrong size... it should probably be standard M8 single ring bolts: amzn.to/3epotdw
@@eBikeaholic thanks for the tips! Still haven't got the proper replacement bolt, but the temporary one is working fine. I think my internal hub is damaged, the rear clutch is not engaging properly. Thought I might fiddle with the belt tension to see if it helps at all.
@@jeffmueller3909 I'm under the impression that the Nexus 3 is pretty hard to damage... have you tried adjusting the hub? When you shift it in 2nd gear there should be a little yellow indicator in the center of the window that's attached to the axle. czcams.com/video/Nx0I-4JdQ2k/video.html
Yes, I have to adjust that every time I take off the mechanism. Water tends to get in the hub.
Thanks for sharing
What do you do if your bike does not have any backward-facing belt tensioning bolts? I have looked for something similar on my bike, but there is nothing like those, nor anything that would appear to perform the same tensioning function. The bicycle is a Scott e-sub Tour belt 2018.
Nice bike, looks like that model has the Conti belt. If there's no tension bolts I'd imagine you'll have to tension it the same way you would a typical single speed or IGH chain drive. Loosen the four horizontal bolts (two on each side?) that hold the rear dropout bracket in place, then pull back on the wheel while tightening the four bolts. When I tension my single speed bike I sit with the wheel between my legs, tighten the bolt on the non-drive side, then pull the wheel straight while tightening the drive side. Then measure the tension... it'll take trial and error but you should eventually get the feel for it. Make sure the wheel ends up straight. You might want to shoot an email to Scott or Continental or just ask your local bike shop to take a look.
Just found this service video on the ContiTech website, should be helpful... www.continental-bicycle-systems.com/en-gl/Ebikes/Media/Videos/Belt-Drive
would you be able to twist the belt? A good trick mechanics use to roughly gauge belt tension is to see how far you can twist it about itself. A good tension is a belt that can twist 90degrees. 180 too loose, 45 is too tight.
One reason I never give my bike into hands of so called professionals but doing on my own follow strictly recommendation of the manufacture.
@@Michael-wn4jj it's not as a quantitative method, but gives you a good idea if your belt is too tight or loose. Pretty much all seasoned mechanics work off this when inspecting belts. That said you could see how much variation there was within two plucks of the belt. Again intuition and sense of what tension feels like can be more valuable to you with your tools and especially when you don't have your tools with you.
You should not twist an carbon belt in my opinion.
When i try it i see the spikes on the graph, but im not getting any numerical values.
hmm, yeah that's weird I just tested it and my app is doing the same thing... maybe it's a bug. It gave me one reading then when cleared it won't give another reading. Maybe try reinstalling the app and restarting your phone? I wonder if there's another app with a similar function you could try - for guitars or something?
@@eBikeaholic you know what, i tried another app and it does exactly the same thing. Now im thinking its just my phone. Ill try it with another phone.
How often do you have to do this? Also, at 3:38, why did it go down to 32 and then up to 56 without adjusting the belt?
I've only had to do it once since this bike has a sliding dropout. With standard dropouts / no belt tensioner - it would need to be done when the rear wheel is removed.
All good but don't loose or tighten the bolts using ratchet. 😉
Is there any torque value for tightening?
Yup, always a good idea to use a torque wrench if available! Depending on the bolt grade and material of the bracket, M6 bolts can usually torque between 12 - 20 Nm. In this case I think the bolts are grade 9.8 and the threaded bracket is steel. I've been wrenching long enough to get a good feel for it and am confident that I stayed in that range. I actually haven't needed to touch those M6 bolts on this bike since making this video in 2017, so I'd say they're good to go ;)
Does anyone know if this is the same procedure to adjust belt tension on a boardman urb 8.9, which I'm getting this month.
I don't think so. The Spot frame in this vid has a sliding dropout. It looks like the Boardman belt is adjusted through an eccentric bottom bracket.
@@eBikeaholic okay. Complete novice to bike maintenance but i really want to know how to adjust the tension if it needs it. I know how to measure the tension with the gates app but finding it very difficult to find anything online about how to actually tension it. It's not something I want to pay a professional to do if I can do it myself.
@@grahamjackmacpherson6501 One of the best features of most bikes is that 90% of their maintenance is usually a simple DIY. If in doubt take it to a LBS the first time and ask lots of questions about how they do it... good bike mechanics like to share their knowledge.
This vid does a pretty good job describing the eccentric bottom brackets... czcams.com/video/M7Z0pAWMa0s/video.html&ab_channel=ViventeBikes
Keep in mind - even though the tension may feel a little off or be slightly out of spec, you probably don't need to mess with it. I'm pretty sure they're designed not to stretch like chains do.
Doesn't recognise "strums" %90 of the time and when it does it's inconsistent. 20-90 so I have absolutely no clue what to do.
hmm sorry to hear that. Gates sells a special tool for this, but they are pricey. Have you tried stopping by a local bike shop, they can probably help.
You have to make sure you're in a very quiet environment otherwise ambient noise will throw it off.
Great info...
Thanks for watching!
Ok but what if bolt's stuck then what?
Do you mean the tensioner screw? If it's rusted I'd start with some rust remover spray, then step up to an impact driver. Worst case scenario drill the screw out then fix the threads with a die.
@@eBikeaholic well two bolts that hold tension screw are stuck but there are no visible rust
@@eBikeaholic I cant believe that few stuck bolts prevent me for using my bike and its a nice bike name is Rabeneick TX7
This seems to be a lot of over complicated procedure for a belt that is supposedly incapable of stretching, I’m sure a correct tension can be achieved by common sense adjustment without any adverse issues.
What's complicated about it and whoever said the carbon belt was incapable of stretching?
It's simpler than dealing with a metal link chain.
What's a common sense adjustment method that's better than the one here?