When to change timing belts

imported post

keypontriken wrote:

Recently bought 94 SE trike with 22,500 miles. Real nice shape. I'm healing up from totaling my 05 Roadstar and have only been able to ride around the yard a couple times. any how the bike runs greats and wants to get out on the road! Tomorrow my cast comes off so it won't be long:action:. I've looked through these pages and haven't found anything to tell me when the timing belts should start to be suspect. Do you get poor running and other warnings to alert you or is here some way to check them? Bike hasn't been sitting for long periods just not ridden much. Thanks for your advice, Bob

Click to expand...

The Honda service manual recommends inspect/replace if necessary at 100,000 miles. Some folks will say change them at 10 years, that is not a recommendation from Honda. It's just something that someone dreamed up a few years ago and they started posting it on message boards. After a while folks started taking it as the gospel.

I have seen several 1989 - 1993 Gold Wing's with 130,000 plus miles and the timing belts were still good.

My '99 Wing has 157,000 miles on the timing belts and no problems. I'll probably change them in another 20 - 30k miles.

It's a personal choice but one of the items that gets changed way too often on many Gold Wing's.

If it were my bike/trike, I would not be worried about the timing belts.

imported post

Whiskerfish wrote:

I think 15 years is pushing it. Were it mine I would change them before riding. Once in a great while someone will mention that they heard a whining and found a belt about to fail or it failed right at startup, but 95% of the time there is no warning just engine damage. The amount ofdamage is generally determined by the RPM at the point of failure. So it could be a couple of hundred in damage or a couple of Thousand. Anyway I think I would be scared with 15 year old belts myself.

Oh and I believe that Sandie is 100% correct, more engines are damaged by guys not following the procedure correctly than by belt failures.

Click to expand...

Usually when timing belts whine, it's because someone installed them too tight (not enough slack between the run)

I have seen many 1988 - 1995 Gold Wing's with the original timing belts.

We just changed the timing belts on my friends 1989 Trike last year. Upon close inspection (and I mean close inspection and testing the belts), they were still in excellent condition. The bike was only 19 years old at the time with 130,000 miles. Matter of fact, they were not even loose. This is just one of many many examples I have personally looked at.

But it's a personal decision, if it makes folks "sleep better at night", then change them.

I usually prefer to base some things on experience. That's usually a pretty good teacher.

I personally would like to hear how many timing belts have broken/failed. Personally, I don't know of any. But that's just my experience from having ridden Gold Wing's since 1979. Yours may differ...!

imported post

wda-83wing wrote:

i sleep better at night just knowing-----------------

Click to expand...

Yea me too. Just because it has not happened to me does not mean I can't learn from other peoples mistakes/ misfortunes. In the last 5 years I haveheard of at least 20 belts breaking. Everything from a simple valve kiss with minor damage blended out withsandpaperto trashing a complete engine. I suspect many of these failures were from excessive sitting in one position creating a stess in the core of the belt and leading to it's failure as the bike was placed back into service. As cheap as belts are I think I willstick with 50,000 or 5 years or if I don't know they get changed before I run the bike.

I am very familiar with the whine of a tight belt. That is a very common problem for people that should not be working on bikes because theycan not follow directions. What I was referring to is a couple of cases where a belt started to fail and created a whine and the rider had enough knowledge to get the bike shut down prior to complete failure and saved their engines. The was one case here on this board a couple of years agoand one on NGW. One was ridingin his local township and the other was upon startup getting ready for a ride.

It's your money and your ride. You make your own decisions.

imported post

Paul, I have also changed a few timing belts on GL1500's. I agree, they are easy to do. The last ones I changed were on a 1989, did that while installing a pulse rotor (commonly known as a trigger wheel) that advanced the timing. The 1988 - 1989's had an off idle hesitation, Honda had a fix (not a recall item) to hopefully correct the problem. However, advancing the timing greatly reduced the hesitation. This problem was correct on the 1990 year bikes.

That was the '89 with 130,000 miles. I agree, if it worries you then go ahead and change them.

I usually don't worry until I know it's time to perform various maintenance on my bike and I do keep detailed records of my maintenance.

With 157,000 miles on my GL1500 with no problems, maybe I am doing something right. Of course I purchased it new and therefor have a good baseline to work from. That's very important.

If I purchased a pre-owned bike, I would perform all maintenance items so I had a good baseline to work from. Unless I could be reassured "without a doubt" about the bikes maintenance records.