Rodney

I was just working on an older Bother. The belt on it was badly deteriorated and slipped no matter how tight I got it. The amber belt I tried to use as a replacement slipped like crazy at first too. When I looked closer at the issue what I found was a drive pulley on the motor that had a far wider groove than the belt and the groove on the machine's wheel . After I switched to a narrower pulley that fit the belt better, the belt worked fine.

It may not be the belt's fault. We spend most of our time (at least I do) looking at the length of the belt but how many of us make sure the width is correct as well?
Rodney

Cari-in-Oly

Rodney that's a good point. It's what I discovered right away when I replaced my first belt. It's also why I prefer the black V belts. Very often the orange belts are too wide to fit down in the pulley properly. The black belts that do fit good do more of their gripping from the sides, that's why they can be loose and work well. The orange belts do their gripping from the lugs. Now that being said, Sew Classic does have a narrow orange lugged Vbelt that I have on one machine somewhere around here and it works well. I don't remember why I bought it, maybe it was on sale or she was out of the right black belt at the time.

Cari

BTW- did you get my email?

Sewnoma

That's a good point, and in this case I actually did check the pulley on the motor - I was considering flipping the amber belt inside-out and seeing if that would make it grip better, but the motor pulley is too narrow for the inside-out belt to touch the core of the pulley. It really needs that "V" shape to fit in properly. But now reading Cari's post makes me realize it might actually be TOO narrow, I did NOT check to make sure the lugs could reach properly with the belt flipped the correct direction - that could be part of my problem with the amber belt.

I wish it was just a little bit more adjustable. If I could scoot the motor down just another quarter-inch or so I think the belt that's on there now would be perfect. But if wishes were horses, I'd be up to my neck in manure! LOL