[charleswrivers]

I've been running my old ASW Scorpion (6150) hard lately. An unfortunate couple minutes of hauling a large load though some mud w/the little brake tab thing partly engaged left w/me much reduced power. Upon stopping, I noted a little white smoke coming from the CVT housing. I nursed it home. Ran it today and it seemed fine and not down on power.

Reading a bit this evening, I thought about how I hadn't gone into the CVT since I replaced my rollers w/12g sliders a year or more ago and figured perhaps I should crack it back open and look at any issues. I got the cart ~5 years ago used (seemingly lightly) and probably put a couple dozen hours on it a year, but they are hard hours w/some moderate hills and a lot of weight, through mud and water.

To the point, I figure I oughta get a new belt, regardless due to 100+hours and over 5 years of hard use and the mishap yesterday. I didn't know if I may have done not so nice things to the clutch as well. May times I tend to run it at low speeds (5-10 mph) and was curious if running them at low speeds would be like, in effect 'riding the clutch' of a conventional vehicle... lots on on and off throttle and light partial throttle.

Additionally, I have stock springs, and sliders are my only CVT mod. I thought of getting a 1500 (yellow) torque spring. On the clutch arm springs, I thought of doing the same. I like the idea of having more 'hole shot' acceleration at times, especially for hills. Curious, however... if my heavily loaded, running through mud a lot at low speeds driving style would have a more profoundly bad effect on a clutch with the higher springs, as I would tend to have more intermittent/partial engagement.

I've spent over a hour today watching videos trying to take in how our CVTs works and the intricacies of tuning. I'd like more torque... but not at the expense of whatever reliability we can expect from our toys... given my driving habits. I've gone through the forums and it doesn't seem like many people have need to replace a clutch itself... they've only talked of changing they torque/arm springs.