Something else to check, all the extra stress on the rubber of a 15 year old crank pulley. They do go bad sometimes.

 

No, the smooth idler that comes with the belt wrap kit. The only new pulley that comes with the kit, just below the SC pulley. If it is on wrong a small amount of belt will hang over the edge and it will spaghetti from there. If the belt is 100% on the pulley it's probably on right.

 

well that part came pre assembled from UPD so that isn't in question. Also, as I said earlier, the BWK has been bypassed and I'm not even using that pulley at the moment and it's still eating up the belt.

 

Preassembled lol? It's a bolt that slides through two spacers and a pulley. I can see why you took it to a mechanic to install I can tell you from the first picture you have posted you probably have the pulley on backwards (Look how the side of the pulley you see in your picture is different from the side of the pulley in my picture). If you are not using the BWK than the issue is probably else where but to clear up the issue I had for any one else having UPD BWK problems:

This god damn pulley can not be put on either way. One specific side has to be towards the engine, and one specific side has to be facing the front of the car, the middle of the pulley is not centered so it actually shifts the pulley slightly towards to motor or away from the motor depending on install. The issue I had was when installed the direction that puts it closer to the motor the front lip of the belt hung over the side of the pulley ever so slightly. I could see that it was that portion of the belt that began spaghetti-ing. See how in this photo (with the pulley on the correct way) the front edge of the belt is just barley fully on the pulley:



The spacers are the same size but if you perhaps put the pulley on 180* different than shown in the picture above (It is not "preassembled" it's just a damn bolt that slides through the pulley it's easy to put it on either way) It will shift the pulley slightly more towards the motor because the portion of the pulley that the bolt goes through is not centered on the pulley, as depicted below you can see if the pulley was even a little bit more towards the motor the belt would hang off the front edge:






So, moral of the story is make sure your belt has 100% contact on the pulley, if it doesn't you probably need to flip it. I spaghettied a belt and it was very clear it started on the front edge of the belt that was hanging off the pulley then I found that this, corrected it and have not had an issue since.

Also I have a spare 77mm UPD pulley I used for a bit before switching to a smaller fixed. I can confirm it is very smooth, looks just like yours. Almost just feels like the "rings" are a little residue or something but overall very smooth. I never had any issues with it. Had lots of hard use as well:

 

I will pay close attention to this next week. I ordered a new Gates K080525HD to reinstall using the BWK and the 77mm UPD pulley so I can maybe recreate the problem perhaps with a GoPro and light to see what’s going on under there. Anyone have a GoPro I can borrow. lol. The idler pulley did in fact come preinstalled on the bwk arm so I would be amazed if that is indeed part of the problem as far as it coming from UPD installed backwards but its a strange world we live in. I do want to bring the bwk back into the fold here tho for more reasons than one. I’d like to remember how this car runs when belt slip isn’t an issue. I also plan on cleaning up the crank pulley real well with a wire brush and scotchbrite it while it’s running to get it nice and smooth so there is no abrasion whatsoever. That’s my next step I think. I still haven’t contacted UPD with pics of the melted plastic pins but I plan to do that soon as well. I just want to have a solid foundation of understanding of the problem before I choose how to word the email to them. I feel bad as I perhaps titled this thread with poor choice of words as it sounds like I’m slamming UPDs quality control before I have a solid understanding of what’s causing my problems here, but I’m still in troubleshooting faze on my fact finding mission here so if Shardul is perusing this thread, please forgive my poor choice of a title, it was in poor taste and seems like it’s prematurely pointing the finger. I just want definitive answers and they aren’t coming to me easily.

 

Good luck let us know how it goes

 

If you do work it out remember to edit your OP if possible with the resolution so readers know.

 

I finally got another chance to work on the car today.
My mission was to:
a) remove the stock sized SC belt
b) reclean all pulleys of belt dust and recheck for burrs
c) wire brush and scotchbrite crank pulley to ensure its smooth
d) recheck SC pulley gap
e) check install of BWK pulley as per drothgeb's advice
f) replace tensioner pulley with stock
g) Install new Gates K080525HD

Got everything cleaned up, Again. Found the smallest of minuscule nicks in 2 of the pulleys. I used scotchbrite which didn't do much so I got out some 1000 grit sand paper and smoothed it out best I could with that, but I don't think that was even necessary as they were that small. I found no really noticeable abrasions that I thought could be the root of the problem on any of the pulleys, but nitpicked every pulley with a fine toothed comb and got them super smooth. I held the wire brush and then scotchbrite on the crank pulley with the engine running to get it super smooth. No wobble on the crank pulley, it spun true and even with no play. The tensioner pulley had a few nicks in the metal on the inner body of the pulley which occurred I believe the first time the belt shredded. Close inspection shows the nicks are pretty deep to have been caused by a wrapped up belt shard and I would think something harder was to blame but what I can't imagine. The underside bellypan should block all pebbles and road debris from even getting in there so I found this weird. I decided to replace it with a brand new stock pulley which I had laying around from when I purchased the brand new tensioner as my first act trying to solve this belt shredding issue.
I rechecked the SC pulley gap and it was at about .35mm which is low side of tolerance again even with the thicker shim so I installed my other shim with it and it now measures .5mm after the car was started but not driven.
Before I reinstalled the gates 525 belt, I wanted to inspect this BWK pulley so I pulled that off and then reexamined Drothgeb's post on the matter. Now I'm a bit confused because I'm finding a few descrepencies. Is it possible or Have there been a few different versions or Generations of UPD's BWK? Maybe Shardul can chime in here with an answer.
Drothgeb spoke of the offset of this pulley and suggested that I have it on backwards. As I said before, this pulley came from Shardul preinstalled inside the box it was shipped in. Meaning the bolt was already tightened thru the BWK arm, spacer, pulley, collared spacer, and threaded into the mounting hardware so the correct orientation would not be up for debate, unless shardul shipped it to me installed wrong and Drothgeb's way is correct. At this point I'm willing to try anything so I want to give Drothgeb's advice a fair shake, however, I had the understanding that the retaining clip is suppose to be installed away from the engine on all UPD pulleys, but maybe I'm not correct, that's why I'm here searching for answers. If I could pay to have it done correctly locally I'd do it but I can't rely on that for this issue it seems and now I'm forced to spend my own valuable time here, lol. Not complaining, I love the community here and I'm here to learn all I can so I thank you all. But back to this pulley offset issue, I've found after inspection that my BWK pulley has the same offset from the bearing on both sides according to my makeshift depth gage. I didn't have my calipers or starrett depth gage handy for a precise measurement but it looked like the offset was right at about 8.5mm both ways to me. The pulley is designed different on both sides and it looks like it'd be offset, but as far as I can tell it's an illusion and measures the same both ways according to my pathetic measurement. Maybe the lack of precision of my crappy measurement can't show the offset spoken of if its minute enough






and also my spacers are definitely not the same length, not even close, and this leads me to believe that my BWK could be different than Drothgeb's if his spacers are identical in length, so maybe we can't compare. Here are my spacers



I installed it Drothgeb's way (retaining clip in towards engine) and started the car for a bit to get the belt centered and settled and this is the result.. shown in the following pics











its not centered but flush with the outside edge of the pulley

 

This is how the belt looks when the BWK pulley is installed with the retaining clip facing out away from the engine the way it was shipped to me from Shardul





I didn't really see a noticeable difference.

I have not driven the car yet, but as of now, the BWK pulley is installed Drothgeb's way with the stock tensioner pulley installed in place of the nicked UPD one. This is what it looked like...



So the changes made for this test run were:
1) replaced UPD SC tensioner pulley with new Stock pulley
2) BWK pulley flipped 180* as per Drothgeb's advice
3) Extra shim added to SC pulley to push gap slightly past .5mm
4) installed new Gates K080525HD belt

I'll report back when I have more news. I'm done for the day.

 

It's been about a year since I had it off, but once I flopped it, no more belts. Next time I have it off I'll take some measurements and make sure I wasn't just being had by an optical illusion and the belt not shredding any more just being a lucky coincidence. Might be a little bit though.

Any ways, best of luck hopefully they stop shredding.

 

 

I usually turn all my wrenches at my Mom's house. It's an awesome garage and shop setup and every tool I'd ever need. My dad's main hobby was restoring old 70's motorcycles before he died earlier this year. He was my best friend and we worked side by side for years on these old bikes and restored close to 70 bikes over the years. Mostly Honda's but some Kawasakis including a few KZ900s and KZ1000s. We even did an original Z1 in the brown and orange. They were always factory restorations and returned to like new bone stock machines. There are so many parts left over in his inventory I could open a store. Those are Honda Gauges you are seeing mostly CB750 or CB400 gauges. I can't remember if we have any Kawasaki gauges left but it's insane how many parts I have to get rid of in the coming years. I miss the old man like crazy. He left me all his tools, but I like leaving everything exactly as he had it at my mom's. She doesn't need the space and his setup is super sweet, so I just go over there anytime I need to work on stuff. It's only a couple miles from my house anyhow. I do ride quite a bit. My vintage bike that I still ride is a Honda CBX in beautiful showroom condition, and it was born in 1980 just like me. I'm actually flying out Friday to Omaha to ride a 2015 Kawasaki concours 14 that I just bought back to my home in central IL. Should be a 5+ hour cold cold trip, but I'm ready. Interesting that you commented on that.

As far as the car, I've only driven it about 10 miles or so. Home from my Mom's, to work and back, and in that span I did get on it enough to kick in the supercharger with 2 or 3 healthy pulls but nothing WOT because I never got it hot enough yet. There has been no new belt dust generated yet and the belt looks perfectly aligned and running straight and true. The last time I worked on it, just the drive home from my mom's was enough to generate enough belt dust to see, so I'm optimistic. We'll see how it does. That belt as tight tight tight, I wonder if its too tight putting maybe just a bit too much tension on the pulleys.

What's everyone running for a belt on a 77mm SC pulley with BWK? Maybe I should put a 530 on there instead of the 525. But with the 525 on there I have no concerns of belt slip that is for sure. Thoughts?

 

How do you like your old 76 KZ? Still running strong? I always loved those bikes. Huge power for those days. and a kick@$$ looking machine to boot! Kawasaki has a new bike that is a throwback to the old KZ. It looks like too much of a modern twist on old design though. Not enough chrome to be super cool to me. I still like the old ones!

 

 

I had the same problem. It was not a issue with the kit, the shims for the belt wrap are staggered. Have to get them in the right order. That sounds like your shredding belt issue.

Also, the amount of stress put on these pulleys due to the belt wrap to keep the belt from slipping on the blower is a great deal more than they were ever intended for. The reality of it is your going to have to periodically check the pulley bearings for noise and failure. Had to replace a few on my car when it had the the stock blower setup and on my fathers E55.

Just gotta be vigilant.

 

Glad it worked out for you. But sorry that the alternator died too. Yeah reman parts are garbage for the most part. If I can buy new name brand I will do that.

 

What about Arnotts reman are they okay?!

 

 

hello I have same issues 🙈where I can get those melted plastic please help

 

What size pulley was this? 77mm?

 

With the plastic melting like it looks like the pulley is getting much hotter than it's supposed to, which would make me think it may be slipping, so your magnet or clutch plates are at fault.

 

83 mm