A firend has a 1997 V-max 700 sx. His machine will go throough a belt in about 100 miles. he has replaced 4 of them now. We checked the alignment and it was off a tad, so this has been corrected and reset using a clutch alignment tool. The deflection has been set as follows: with the rear of the sled off the ground the track will barly rotate at idle. Prior to this the belt would squeel at idle, this was taken care of by replacing the sheeve bolts that adjust the width of the seconday the bolts were so worn we could not open the secondary enough to get the belt in the pulleys, it now sticks up about 1/8 inch. What could be the problem?

Hey,

You are going to need to get the tool and do the alignment correctly. Just using your eye and the fact the track moves a bit at idle is not good enough. After 4 belts you would have had enough to buy the deluxe tool.

The offset is wrong and/or the distance center to center is off.

Also you say the secondary is sticking after you replaced the bolts. This needs to be corrected.

Good luck.

he has the alignment tool and it still shreds belts. As far as the secondary, there is three bolts on the back side of the clutch that allows you to adjust the closed width of the secondary. These bolts were worn down far enough so that when the secondary would close it would close to tight and cause the belt to be to tight. Once those were replaced and the off set was set it is better but still a problem. The alignment tool does not set center to center just alignment. So, we need to set the center to center? does a tape measure work or is there a better way w/o buying a 125.00 tool? He doesn't have the money, as it's all been spent on belts!

I have a 97 MM700 and it was doing the same things, I had a few shops align the clutches as it squeaked at idle and it would be noisy again the first ride. Finally someone said it was just a yami thing. Then I too started blowing belts, I thought Yami had put the wrong part number on for the 97 year so I tried a 98 belt and they last no problem, however I found out today (from the clymer 97-2000 Yami shop Manual) that 97 year had a different belt that is about a cm longer than the 98 belt, which would explain why I have been having a ##### of a time climbing hills in the powder. (shorter belt gears it up)

The clymer manual tells you how to adjust all the settings I would recommend it, I got mine from royal distributing. They also have cheaper alignment tools.

I dont have the answers unless a 98 belt works fine for you, maybe a Yamaha engineer can tell us why they changed belts after 97 and what we should do to fix it properly(other than buy a REV)