I went through and downloaded all your tutorials, and WOW, JeffR, let me add my sincere thanks for your hard work!!! Thanks to you I'll be able to take care of my baby on my own, once I find a decent workspace in LONDON.

AMAZING!! cheers from the UK

Hey SwingLondonUK,

Thanks and I'm glad they helped. It isn't too much work since I did these over the course of about a year but I'm glad they helped. And it is good for others to download them too just so you have them on your computer too. If you need any help or info just come back since one of us should be able to give an answer. Congrats with your SWing.

You may say so but very few people would put such time and efforts to help others like you did.

Great post! I was almost ready too take my bike to the local Honda dealer and pay $225...his quote... to have this done. Now I'll just buy the parts and follow your instructions. First class work!!

Had half an hour free tonight after Sunday dinner, so i thought it was time to swap the belt and see what the job was like. I had checked the pics a few weeks ago and apart from putting the belt on backwards cos I forgot to check, all went well. The impact driver made the job an easy one. i just need to knock up a tool to hold the variator tomorrow morning so that i can torque it up properly.

One little tip, to ease fitting the pulley, I used a thin piece of wood to "pull" the belt into the clutch end pulley and opening it up, by pulling the stick against the variator spindle, which then made fitting the variator pulley much easier. I have used the same trick on farm machinery!

It looked like someone may have been in there before, as there was copperslip grease on some of the bolts to prevent sticking. The old belt was 2mm narrower than the replacement.

I'm getting ready to change my V-belt -- after reading JeffR's great pictorial, I have one question: what solvent do you recommend for cleaning the belt case air filter?

which way does the large bolt in the center of the variator turn? lefty loosy i thought.

yep

Yes, anti clock the 17 mm bolt for disassembling the variator.(front part)


Did it today , used self made tool for counter force and a hand wrench.
It was a hard job to loosen the bolt, i think it was tightened by a impact wrench.

Toke off the slider pulley for inspection.
Sliders black ...rubber dust from belt.
But no signs of worn.(20.000 miles)

A lot of hard dust behind the pulley, sticked on the case and engine bearing.

Used WD40 and a little copper brush.
Then very careful wipe of with paper towels.
The slider plate , 4 plastic holders and the sliders needed only a good cleaning.

Failed to take off the clutch.
To tightened... i was working alone.. the rear tire was sliding.
Maybe it works when a heavy helper uses his weight on the rear of the scooter.

I will like a elect. 12 Volt impact wrench.

But it is not very common in my area.(shops)

Eddy

I changed my belt and J Costa pins last week with a little less than 16,000 miles on the odometer. The pins had about 8500 miles on them, and the belt was original (from 2003). Belt looked good, but the pins were worn across the top. There was a little wear in the holes the pins insert into, and I had noticed that the RPM's would go about 400 RPM too high under hard acceleration (which happens often!). My V light had come on several times during the last week.

With the new pins and belt, acceleration feels good and RPMs are back down to about 6800-7000 under full throttle acceleration from a stop. RPMs at cruising speeds (50-70 mph) seem to be down between 200-400 RPM compared to the old belt and pins, now often being less than 5000 RPM when under 60 mph.

One thing I did notice is that the two halves of the variator have obviously been rubbing against each other, probably because the belt had narrowed. There was a wear mark in the center of each half, nice and shiny. I did not think to take pictures (I rarely remember that I own a camera).

As others have mentioned, a shop vacuum was all that was needed to clean the filter and casing. Nothing wet was needed.

I just replaced my belt tonight. To get the bolt off of the variator I first tried the "Russian Method" as I have dubbed it, from the Youtube video. It did not work.

I grabbed the parts list for the Leroy Beal variator tool and went to Lowes. $13 bought everything I needed, including a new drill bit to drill the holes in the iron bar. I used a roto-zip with the steel cutting wheel and it cut right through the metal. Installed the bolts and I was ready to go. With the variator tool, the bolt came off easily.

If you haven't built the tool, please do, it is cheap and easy if you have a good dremel or roto-zip. Would only take a little more time if all you had was a hacksaw. The M6 bolts fit in perfectly.

I used an M6-20 to bolt the two pieces together so I could use one package of nuts for the center pin and the two variator pins.

Thanks for the pictorial. I figured I could have purchased a cut-off saw and still come out ahead in price over having the dealer do the work.

This is why I love my Swing. It is so easy to do all of the maintenance, it is much cheaper in the long run over a bike that needs to be taken in for all of the work.

There's nothing that special about the honda 'Variator tool', it's proper name is a universal clutch holding tool. There should be plenty of low cost versions of it around. And for cleaning an aerosol brake cleaner would be best.

So would this work then?
Universal Clutch tool

Why not make this one for under $1 in parts.

http://www.leroybeal.net/motorcycles/silverwing/articles/drivepulleytool/drivepulleytool.html

That tool would probably work but looks a liitle specific, there are several designs that look almost identical to the Honda tool. But a piece of wood and a couple of blunt nails will do exactly the same, and you can make the handle longer!

Ah that's what the Honda one looks like, never seen it before. Typically over engineered.

There is just one thing I would like to add to this information of changing the belt.
I noticed that the variator plates are made of soft aluminum? and the splines are easily dammaged. So what I did was install the belt only on the front and in between the variator plates and screwed in the bolt just enough so that the bolt was secure and the plates lined up. Then I pushed the belt on to the lower part of the clutch and turned the variator by hand as far as I could, tightening the belt and then put my shoe on the belt and pressed the starter button, just for a second. It slipped on like a champ and I was able to tighten down the bolt to the proper specks turning the belt a few times along the way.

Thanks JeffR for the tutorial.
I'm actually going to be replacing the black outer trans cover (the larger one with the filter inside forward of the round one that has the Honda name plate on it) as it developed a stress crack that is growing. I was wondering if it is at all possible to undo the four bolts that hold it on without removing the passenger foot-peg assembly. I almost think I could get a small socket wrench to remove the front most bolt that sits under the foot peg assembly. Usually removal of anything that involves clips and tabs like the upper one with the hole in it are a pain. Or is the peg removal & re-installation easy as pie?

"Or is the peg removal & re-installation easy as pie?"
Yes it is.

Bill,

I'm glad the pictorial is helpful. I would just remove it since it only takes about 2-3 minutes and then you have plenty of room to get to the other bolts. But like Roger said..it is very easy to remove and it is very quick too.

Thanks guys for your replies. I guess I was concerned about the parts of the peg assembly that tuck under the bike like the clip and the upper tab that you must press against, knowing, of course, that the allen screws would be the easy part. But if y'all say it's going to be easy then I'll take your word for it. I probably will receive the new trans cover Monday or Tuesday and then install it. Now I'm wondering how the old one could have developed a crack running from the top downward on the upper narrow part. I'm thinking the culprit may be the gazillion speed bumps I have to go over now that I've moved into a new home development. I think I've gone over them slow but had a few pop up and surprise me early on.

Guys, now I'm thinking of going in to change out the rollers to sliders. I was wondering if there were any pics of the change using a stock variator as this pictorial shows the procedure with a J Costa variator. I'm especially interested in zoning in on the variator removal procedure. From there I can see the other thread with the link to Buggy Parts NW's tutorial on the slider installation. It looks like I'll have to get a torque wrench and be real careful tearing down through the tranny to avoid re-installing anything wrong or damaging the belt.