Good and bad news.

Good news

The conversion is finished and the motor works well.

We did a 20 mile ride including 1100 feet of ascent and descent. It would have been a killer without the motor, but with the motor it was fun. It isn’t sophisticated but it is certainly effective – it can pull all of us up a steep hill without any pedal pressure but the battery doesn’t last long under that treatment.

I’m happy with the front-wheel drive and positioning of the components. The bike is very stable – and in slippery / muddy conditions the bike feels more stable with the front wheel driving as well as the rear.

Bad news

Issue 1 – RHS torque plate too close

The RHS (offside) torque plate is very close to the hub. It doesn’t actually touch but it needs to have more clearance. I’ve machined it down and fitted a 1.5mm shim between it and the wheel.

Issue 2 – System switches off

Every so often – about every 20mins – the whole system switches off. This isn’t just the motor cutting out – the LCD powers down. This might be a duff connection or it might be related to me not having the whole system connected up yet. Or it might be related to the issue below.

This issue is not a problem going downhill, but is a bit crippling when it happens going uphill. For now I’ll monitor and see how it goes.

Update: this issue is now fixed.

Issue 3 – Insulation damage on motor wire

It looks like I’ve damaged the wire to the motor somehow. I’m not sure how this happened; however the motor is heavy and the axle is fairly thin and thus sharp.

As you can see I took the cover plate off the motor to see if it was possible to replace the wire. Sadly it looks like the wire is glued in and I don’t want to dismantle further unless I’m desperate.

One wire (green) is cut down to the core. The yellow wire appears ok. It is hard to get any meaningful insulation on the wire at this point.

Currently I’m not sure where to go with this. I’ll take time out and have a think…

Update: I’ve found instructions on the web for getting the motor apart so will give it a go…