how many rollers are there?

6 or 8 rollers in the CVT?

Rollers, the belt and how to get to them in spite of Murphies law

My little air compressor was not able to get the nuts from the pulleys off so I got my one of these.

An electric impact wrench with 700w what did the job nicely.

Nobody told me that to remove the transmission cover you need brute force.

I tried it it with a home made extractor but no luck.





When I asked my friend sloper from Bella Italia how to get the cover off her replied:

The problem is the sea salt or the sand who from your zone has slipped somewhere and that has created a binding between the parts.
It can also go by myself, when in winter the salt put on roads to prevent the formation of ice.
I think the only thing that is screwing the bolt and use a rubber hammer and give a couple of shots taken in the center of the bolt.
Without ruining anything! Screw and unscrew, still WD40, screwing and unscrewing, blow rubber hammer ecc.ecc. until the final solution!
It is not a problem of the factory, but to local conditions. Even the simple go to the sea can cause this type of accident.
To prevent, hoping that you can remove the bolt, put grease over the shaft to the wheel and you not have more problems.
You stay quiet and you will see that we will manage. Cheerio for now ! Good luck !

After lots of banging and wedging screwdrivers between the lid I decided I needed a professional extractor.



This solved the problem in 2 seconds.

Finally open and you see the home of the "strangeled sea lion" the nice blue bell of the clutch.


Notice the 2 washers on the pulleys, they want to go back there.





Not much wear in the bell housing.



After 18000 km there is still lots of material on the clutch.

The driven pulley


and the shaft with the brown part where the ball bearing held an desperately until my fancy 20 Euro extractor pulled them appart.



For these 2 rollers I have a special surprise (see next posting)

There is marginally a tiny bit of wear on the rollers but just on the bottom where they were sitting in idle position. I just rotated them 180 degrees and they are good for another 18000 km at least.


This is the worst looking roller and there is a little flat spot on it.The abrasion on the rollers is from this worse case to 4 rollers who show virtually no no wear.All wear was where the rollers were in rest position.
There was no noise when the rollers were at work or at rest.


The belt has a new width from 26.2 mm and a replace width from 25 mm.
Well, I measure more 26.4 mm


With 26 mm after 18000 km the belt is nearly new.


Checking for cracks and defects I noticed a few threads  missing in parts of the belt.
These are the worst parts, so I think I shall check back in another 5ooo km to see if there is more noticeable  deterioration.




so looks a new belt.



I payed 63 Euro for mine, not too bad for Coconut Island Price.
To put the variator assembly back together proofed a challenge. The spring of the driven pulley needs to be compressed so the belt sits on the bottom of the pulley.
With the help of a bolt cutter and some plastic molding to protect the pulley from scratches I managed to open the pulley up.




You need to put something in between the pulley to hold it open.

... and there you go the belt is in the pulley.


just a little squeeze from the bolt cutter to release the pulley open holder tool


and ready you are.


Now just screw it back together and you are done.


Piece of cake - If you know all the little tricks (a powerful torque wrench, an extractor and something to pull the pulley apart to insert the belt)