My question is why is the pulley out of round to begin with?

The pulley is not out of round. The holes for mounting it on the rim need to be loose enough to allow the pulley to be attached without using a hammer to pound it into place, and that allows the possibility for pulley to be mounted ever so slightly off center.

This is a potential issue on any bike but I don't think I've ever seen a service manual mention it as an issue. Maybe the length of the belt on these bikes make it more of a concern?

 

I gotcha! It's not Hubcentric. Didn't even thing about that even though it was a huge point of contention when I was buying mag wheels for my jeep and for the same reason to make damn sure the wheels would be exactly centered.

 

Why don't they taper the bolts and pulley or use studs and tapered nuts ? I mean it's done on virtually every auto on the road for wheels and hardly ever any back off and they are centered by design. Seems like the way our pulleys are mounted is bad design to me especially when we see posts of them loosening up.

 

I've wondered the same thing.

I suspect that it has to do with the minimizing the thickness of the pulley. Take the current thickness of the material where it bolts to the rim and that is the minimum thickness of the material so the bolts/nuts won't tear through the pulley. Any tapered section that is added must be in addition to that so you end up with a pulley that is roughly twice the thickness in that center section. I can't remember the design around that section off the top of my head but adding width to the pulley potentially creates other fitment issues.

Basically, using tapered bits resolves any issues with centering the pulley, but it potentially adds other costs and this isn't really a big issue. I guess their cost/benefit calculations came down on the lower cost option.

And keep in mind that this is not unique to Victory.

 

to check your wheel alignment, with wheel off ground spin wheel forward. Now look at belt. It should be in a straight line.

 

That's a good way to see if the pulley is warped. What we were talking about is the off center mounting of the pulley when your viewing it from the side. When I bought my mag wheels for the jeep I made sure to get hubcentric wheels. They slide over a circular flange and center the wheel and place the load from the mag to the axle directly. The bolts merely hold it on and are not supporting the weight. Some mags have a hole that is larger than the flange and when you install those wheels they are never perfectly centered, and the lug bolts transfer all the load. The same thing is happening with the pulleys as they are not centered perfectly when mounted. The bolts that hold them on don't align them perfectly, but they get fairly close. If the wheel had a circular flange and the pulley fit snugly over it then it would be centered and we wouldn't have to find the tight spot for belt adjustments.