Good news
I would suggest you should go through a distributor J&L, Carlisle, like Tsubaki for example (the manufacturer itself) will give distributors CRAAAAZY discounts because of their volume... You will probably get a better price going that way... Trust me... my full time job is to sell sawmill parts and some of my customer are just amazed on how low our pirces are on some of our hydraulic cylinders comparing going through the manufacturer directly...
Now read this:
We can use the Gates 36mm wide Polychain belts on the 6 & 800. My friend back east has ridden the 36mm Gates belt since he owned his 800HO. He's 250 pounds and rides it hard on hardpack. He was workng at ADB and he was the one who tested the little belt on his 800. He's got the narrow top pulley, narrow belt tensionner and the larger torque limiter pulley. He told me his TLS was working very nice, that it slips only when he crosses a ditch or something sharp that stops the track like a bastadge (yes, they ride weird stuff back east !) and he needs to tighten it up every 2 ride or so...
Now, as Tony told me, the larger Carlisle Panther belt was probably used because the Gates couldn't go around the outside of the 4th pulley on the 600 trail model. They decided to use that as the standard... for the mountain Hawks having the same gearing as the 503 (28-56), they decided to stick with the 60mm wide belt... But the 36mm Gates will hold, even on 800s no problem. It'll snap if you land on hardpack WOT or if the belt jumps some teeth on either one of the sprocket pulleys.
Now what I was concerned about was that if you go on the Gates website and consult the GT2 belts tooth profile, the shape of the tooth is not the same as the Carlisle... Gates says it's not interchangeable... Which doesn't seem to be a problem on the Hawk pulleys... And as well, Gates has a new line of belt called "carbon drive", apparently 25% stiffer and more resistant to snapping than the GT2 style found on stock 503s. I can get them at 150$ each, which is still too much. "Everyone can afford to loose a 75$ belt" (Tony Sexton) in opposition to a 200-230 $ belt... At 200$ a belt, you even ask yourself if you should carry one in stock ! Damn, that's 400$ worth of belts !!! (considering paying them 200$ not 350$!!!) I suggest the best would be to go back to the Gates Polychain GT2 36mm as it seems to be good enough to hold on an 800. I even got the confirmation from Max at ADB yesterday...
Now... Chain drive... I have my kit ready to go but i'm having second thoughts... I made all the above researches last week... And still haven't took a decision... Chain drive is, for sure the way to solve the problem forever... but I think it's a step back in some kind of way that I think there's better... Since I ride mostly powder, I'm not a big jumper on hard pack and I only want to get rid of the TLS, I'm wondering if chain drive is for me. A guy who jumps a lot and just lands WOT, I would say, go for it. What I have in mind would be to switch to the exact same drivetrain as a 503, direct drive 36mm GT2 belt. Lighter than chain drive, accurately transfers power... Since ADB wants to sell me the bottom 56T pulley at 180$ and 126$ for the top one... I can't decide what to do...
Any 503 rider who switched to a TLS wanting to sell his lower 56T pulley ???
Anyway...
