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[Dan_Lockwood]

I'm wondering how we get 10's of thousands of miles out of our rear aluminum sprockets without them wearing out?

I have around a '10 touring rear wheel in my office with the cush drive sprocket and it sounds like it's heat treated when I ping it with a steel bar.  I would think it would  be just a dull thud if it was just plain cast aluminum.

The reason I ask is that my buddies over on Talk Morgan with their Morgan Three Wheelers are getting very bad wear on their rear sprockets with a 1.5" wide belt.  It all appears to be the same pitch as Harley uses.  They're getting less than 10k miles in some cases and the sprockets are shot.

They also get lots of belt noise and they're trying to doctor up the belts with dressing, talc powder, silicone etc.  They're saying that they read on HD forums of all the noise and sprocket wear HD guys are complaining about.  I've not read anywhere on here about guys unhappy with their belt sprocket wear or none have complained about noisy belts.

So what are the "other" HD guys complaining about?  Am I out in left field and there IS a problem that I've just not heard about?

Anyway, I've been telling them that HD's usually get 40k to 60k miles on a belt and rear sprocket.  At least that's what I've gathered from reading on here in the past.

Some are looking at having an overlay done by this company.

http://www.supermax.net/Pages/home.asp

This looks like a good alternative to replacing your sprocket with a new costly one, but again, I didn't know we had a problem.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and to all, a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING...

[Ed Ramberger - One_Screamin_Eagle]

The sprockets have a plating on the drive surface.  You might hear some people call it an industrial chrome or chromium plating.  At least that is the way it was explained to me years back.  You will also see that as the miles rack up, the surface area where the belt rides loses the coating. 

There are many reasons the other sprockets you reference may wear faster including their application and construction. 

[Chains]

Probably hard coat Anodize. That would give the aluminum a real high Rockwell somewhere around 80 to 90.  Used the process a lot building machines for Procter & Gamble.

[Ed Ramberger - One_Screamin_Eagle]

I don't know the exact process but it was explained something along these lines.  I'm not saying this is the process, just that this is similar to something like this.  It was not anodizing though.

http://www.electrohio.com/Finishing/Chrome/HardChrome.htm