Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Does the chain drive makes more noise than a belt

Does the chain drive makes more noise than a belt drive ?

I read sometimes comments that a chain drive makes a lot of noise.

After over 15000 km driving a Phil Bleazey designed chain drive on a M3W – in all conditions - I like to state :
The chain drive makes far less noise than the belt drive.

The squeaking noise of a drive belt and the not well aligning possibilities of the belt is far more irritating.

I also drove on bikes with chains and was never aware of much noise.
On Motorbikes the use of drive belts are more often a discussion than the use of chains.

Yes, Sometimes chains make noise.
But see that as a warning signal.
You are not oiling the system.

Chains need to be oiled also on a M3W and I suppose that all the chain-noise discussions find their source in lack of a good chain-oiling system.
The moment you hear chain-noise have a look within 500km at the oiling of your chain.
You have time enough to do this.
A simple – so called – chain-brush with some thick bevel-box oil is enough.
5 minutes work for the next 'silent' 500 till 1000 km.

I use myself a very cheap semi-automatic system : the “Loobman chain-oiler” system for UKP 30.

Since the Loobman guy does not supply extra parts you have to invent yourself a better installation. That’s another article on itself.
There are many other and/or more costly chain-oiler systems too. Used on many bikes.

The main question of course is :
Why should we go from drive belt to chain-drive.

The answer is simple – don’t laugh – NOISE.

The belt is the main source of the terrible noise most Bevel-boxes make around 80km/hr.



Bevel-box noise.

As a project, I work on a – hopefully reasonable cheap – solution for the bevel-box noise.
I am now in the test phase of 2 of them.
Due too health issues this is a bit delayed.
But I thought it became necessary to react on the mentioned ‘noise issue’ of chain drives.

In the mean time we have in our Bevel-Box project – we called it the Betty Boop project - already made several conclusions.
The Quaife Bevel box is not that bad made as we thought.
We is my fiend of the nearby Landrover garage and myself.

Actually Quaife used one of the best bearings on the market for this one.
The crown-wheel and pinion wheel are of high quality and with the three bevel boxes - we have now seen - they are not the problem.

We are 90% sure the noise problems comes from
1. The overtight Drive belt,

And then a long time no reasons
and further
2. Not enough and the wrong lubrication oil,
3. Not keeping the bevel box cool,
4. The wrong place of the vent-hole.

Ad 1.
We always have belt aligning problems and we all have to use extreme strength on the drive belt when installing it.
After standing a week or more in a garage the little necessary lub-oil present in the bearing is nearly totally pressed out of this conical bearing because of the continuous extreme tangential force on it even when the vehicle is not in use.
This results in actually nearly dry bearings the first 10km you drive again.
And in no time your bearings are gone.
The worn bearings is the main source of the noise.
In all three bevel boxes we found ‘worn-out’ bearing-rollers of the crown-wheel.

Which means : With a drive belt, you have to renew your bevel-box bearings regularly.

Although we bought extra, we even did not need to replace the shims till now.

It is probably not for nothing that MMC still uses chain-drive on the super-3

The chain does not give any pression on the bearings.
The chain is installed loose. I have > 4 cm vertical space on my chain.
Loose when not in use, which means also a great part of our driving time, f.i. when you freewheel.

Ad 2.
The standard differential lub-oil used is fine for a vehicle that’s regularly used, but our M3W’s are not enough used frequently.
So you have to find an oil-type which is thicker and stays and sticks better in the bearings.
We have used 250 grade oil for 12.000km. Not becoming a lot thinner when hot.
I use Amsoil severe gear 250, also for the chain oiler.
I have a lot of good experiences on ships with Lucas Heavy Duty and do think that this oil is good too or even in combination with others.

Volume : Go from 300cc to at least 700cc.
The Crown wheel needs enough oil to pump – rotate - it through the bevel-box
The Crown wheel is actually your bevel-box oil pump and the standard oil level does not touches enough the advised only 300cc oil.

More oil keeps at least also a part of the bearings dipped in oil and gives oil directly to the rest when driving.

Sorry, but forget the ‘over-pressure’ stories when discussing about too much oil.
Even with the vent in the original middle placed the overpressure is with 900cc never ever more than 0,5 bar, which overpressure every quality oil-seal can handle.
We got the idea that the possible cause of leaking oil-seals can be that there was NO oil to lubricate them at all and in that case an oil-seal is in no time gone. No joke, oil seals do need a fine thin film of lub-oil.

We did over more than 10.000 km several foam test.
Foaming oil in a differential box means there is – besides a lot of other reasons - too much oil and or possible the wrong oil. So a ‘Foam-test’ is a good test to get to know how much you need to fill a differential box.

Ad 3.
The Bevel box becomes hot. Over 150 degr.C is not abnormal. ( We have gauges to check it )
You need - instead of the advised 300cc - at least 700cc, I use > 750cc already for more than 10.000 km.
Besides the necessary lubrication function, Oil is an important cooling factor, like in our engine : Cool it.

I also installed the PB Bevel-box mount support and luckily got rid of that terrible NVH system. Now I could make an air-duct to direct the air to the bevel-box. It helps.
We got the temperature down with an average of more than 40 degr.C
And the PB-mount saves a lot of weight too.

We also think that a separate bevel-box-oil-cooler – f.i. Emil’s - is a symptom control and no cause control.
The cause is the belt drive and even with a cooler and not enough oil you still ruin your bearings.

Ad 4.
Quaife made a hole on the top of the bevel-box, but it was closed ( later ? ) on all three we work on.
They still used the same mold to make the bodies. So inside there is still a kind of separator for the splashed around oil.
It is better to use that one on the top. It will give you even more guarantee against overpressure. And filling with my 1 liter tank is extremely easy.
I use from the beginning of the project a small 1 liter tank to control everything.
It is placed at the front-right in our little luggage boot compartment. At the left I have the 50cc bottle for the chain lubricator.

I have standard a temperature gauge in the upper – so called filling – screw.
And I use the lower screw – the so called drain screw - just above the drain screw to check sometimes the oil level, by using the “Stahlbus” drain system and keeping the little hose vertical up instead of down.


Looking to the funny “You-tube” I saw recently on TM about this subject.
I would advise everybody to compare the weight win on a M3W with installed Phil Bleazey Chain-drive and PB Bevel-box mount.
Did you ever looked at the weight of those heavy Belt sprockets and that extreme heavy NVH kit?
It makes this video a laugh on our TM side.


When any of you is interested in our Bevel-box project or is looking for a recon one, let me know.
PM me with your comments and questions.

You are correct with your statement in the last line: “One ant does not know anything”

Herman -
Sorry but have to disagree about belt drive noise, the PB installed chain drive (and BB mount) on a red m3w I have at the moment is much more noisier than the belt on my Orange m3w.
And the mess the required lubrication makes......
And lubricating the chain 500-1000 km? Bit of a pain if your on a 3000km tour...such as the Morocco tour?

Look forward to seeing a solution to the BB issue, although always was under the impression that in gearboxes too much oil = more friction = increase in temperature??

I have driven many m3w's where the BB is quiet - no issue, so not sure the current thinking about increasing oil capacity is the answer when there are many m3w's that do not suffer from BB noise with standard oil quantities. Might be something I'll try with increasing capacity as a quick trial as my Orange m3w's BB screams...
We have tried adding various additives to the std 300ml oil capacity - nothing really made much difference to our m3w's so saved the money and just used std viscosity.

BB mount - again the NVH kit works in most cases - I have only had 1 NVH kit that caused problems (banging on hard acceleration) that couldn't be resolved - although this was a dealer retrofitted NVH kit not a factory fitted one so probably wasn't fitted correctly....and the PB BB mounts aren't a perfect answer as I have experienced on 2 x m3w's..

If your worried about weight then fit a Supermax sprocket - 20000 kms and still okay on my orange car and it gets a hard life...

MMC have only just started using chain drive on the Super 3, probably for 2 main reasons:
1/ its cheaper than a belt to install.
2/ to eradicate the belt squeal noise which is probably due to poorly engineered BB/swing arm alignment in manufacturing which cannot be 'dialled' out by adjusting rear wheel alignment.

So the S3 squealing issues are nothing to do with the belt itself. And its a different Bevel Box to the 5 speeder by another manufacturer - Graziano(?) - so can't see that 2 different world renowned companies have designed and manufactured the BB poorly and not taking into account the belt pressure?

Just out of interest - does the fitting of chain drive to S3's mean the S3 owners have to take the S3 into a dealer every 1000km's for chain lubrication or is there a chain oiler fitted ? If not, is chain covered by MMC warranty? Just interested really.

Please keep us all up to speed on the BB investigation - be interested in any feedback regarding your reconditioned BB to see if it makes a difference on a belt driven m3w.

All the best
Steve

Generally speaking vehicle for vehicle belt drives are quieter, stronger and lighter (read less unsprung weight) whilst having longer service life than chains and of course require minimal maintenance. They do have to be tensioned accurately though (which reduces snatch) and may not be suitable for applications where the swing arm pivot is not concentric with drive sprocket, causing drive length variations during suspension articulation. As for power loss, its minimal - one back to back test on a motorbike showed a one hp improvement over the OE chain.

I agree with Steve about the belt drive. Both my 2013 and 2021 M3Ws with over 70,000 miles between them were/are totally quiet both from belt noise. The trick is basically to run the belt slightly slacker than the MMC setup.

I have never noticed a noise or temperature problem with a Guzzi bevel drive, or maintenance issues with the shaft drive.
Just saying

Agreed but the passenger seating position is a bit compromised....

We had a really noisy bevel box. We have a local engineering firm close to us that build gearboxes for motorbike race teams. They had a look at it. They took it apart and superfinished the teeth and put it all back together.
It's still a bit noisy at 40mph but so much better. It is no longer an issue for me. I don't know whether it is the superfinishing of the wheels or the care that has been put into putting it all back together but if you take the box out yourself it was not a costly exercise and well worth the effort.

Well I have had the chain on for less than the 400 miles when the chain is due to be oiled…It was noisier for the first 75-100 miles, but I cannot tell a difference now. My bevel box is now fully broken in as I’m over 4K miles and it somewhat less shrill now as well. Overall I’m happy to have the ability to replace a chain in the USA without dealing directly with tariffs. I’ve got a spare chain and a fresh connecting link for the chain currently on the sprockets, plus the tool for doing the job. In my opinion it was worth the trouble.