Heavy drag when pedaling

Greetings all! I'm new to the forum and motorized bicycling community as a whole having completed my first build just a few days ago. I chose a Skyhawk GT5 kit on a Schwinn Clairmont mainly for the vintage styling. I have "silently" received a great deal of help from this forum throughout the process (on and off for 4-5 days) and the ease of the Google search feature resulting in a nice, clean build that avoided many mistakes I may have otherwise made. Thanks for that!

This particular question comes after a few hours research here on topics similar to but not exactly addressing the problem I'm facing. By the way, the bike works pretty good otherwise and I've followed directions/informed suggestions/sound advice as closely as possible.

I find that the bike is a hard pedal when the motor is off and clutch disengaged, to the point that I've basically lost the bicycle part of it. In 1st and 2nd gear I can get up to speed to start the bike fine but it's put so much drag that I can't take a normal ride anymore, and that's coming from a reasonably fit individual. It feels similar to tightening the wheel bolts too much on a regular cycle to the point where it does not spin freely. I used to cruise on 4th gear without a motor but now even 1st feels like 5 or 6 on the same flat surfaces. I expected the extra weight and chain to feel like a gear or two up from normal, but this is crazy!

I double & triple checked the clutch for proper engage/disengage and it seems to be fine. At one point I adjusted the cable so the arm was absolutely maxed out in the disengage direction (had to leverage it to do so - there's so much tension) and it still pedaled heavy. I even loosened the flower nut over the clutch to increase its travel. Still starts and runs fine with no apparent slip but entirely too hard to pedal with the motor off. I'm getting no indication that the clutch is anything but fully disengaged. Alignment seems to be pretty good with no chain binding issues. I tried loosening the chain a bit via the tensioner but anything other than taught causes the chain to pop off on the outboard side of the 10t sprocket (think that's a tensioner issue - it sometimes acts as a derailleur when maladjsuted)

Any ideas out there? Assuming it is probably not the clutch at this point, I'm left to think that the 10t motor sprocket may be the culprit. I hear a lot of talk about the sprocket in "freewheel" mode with the clutch disengaged but this is hardly like that - it still takes considerable effort to turn it. Could there be anything other than the clutch causing this issue?

Having never ridden one of these before it's hard for me to say what's "normal", but by the descriptions out there this is not!

Thank you for the responses! I had actually squared away half of the issue since the original post. Of course it did end up being the clutch that caused the excessive drag. What was happening (kind of embarrassing really) was that I did have the clutch fully disengaged when I tightened the cable through the arm, but the enormous amount of travel before the handlebar lever "locks" against the pin was enough to partially engage the clutch again. Ultimately I had to leverage the heck out of the bar on the motor and tighten the cable as far as I could to achieve full disengage at the "lock" position while pedaling. It seems like the amount of tension needed to push the clutch rod is excessive, but I don't see any noticeable defects. The 1/16" free play is long gone but there doesn't seem to be any slip and I can pedal much much better than before.

@Mike B: One of the first pieces in my tool kit was something to remove the chain just incase!

@ The_Aleman & MarkSumpter: I'll make sure the post is greased and if it's not, add some. In what way might that affect performance if it's not well-greased?

On the other hand, the chain still needs to be very tight in order to stay on. I'll need to check into the alignment issues a lot closer. So far I've got just under 60 successful miles on the engine so it does work great, but that chain tension does indicate a subtle problem that will eventually manifest.

GearNut said:

All stock chain tensioner brackets need to be twisted to allow the idler wheel to spin truly in line with the chain travel.

Click to expand...

The twist you are referring to, is it commonly a vertical, horizontal twist or both? I've had trouble with the tensioner from the get-go. Not so much with alignment (have not twisted it...yet) as far as I could tell but with the connections between wheel and bracket. Wouldn't be surprised one bit if that was the culprit.

Thanks again all!

I think I've got the clutch issues taken care of apart from the greasing. I'll do a search on threads that may have answered the question already, but I'm getting an intermittent squeaking noise coming from that 10 tooth sprocket area that's becoming more pronounced and constant.

I'm guessing it needs greasing, do I have to take the whole assembly apart and grease the pin/post and bearing by hand or is there a way of getting to them as is? The end of the post is visible but I can't readily see any bearings around the 10 tooth sprocket area with the cover off. I'm trying to avoid disassembling more than necessary- that's when things go from bad to worse.

As for the alignment issue, I think that tensioner may be a piece of junk. The front and back sprocket seem to be in acceptable alignment but it looks like the tensioner is throwing the setup off. I'm working with adjusting the twist as GearNut recommended but the plastic wheel is wide enough to allow the chain to walk left and right even when it is aligned. I'm going to start searching for a better setup- perhaps one with a spring involved. It seems like the tensioner should have teeth like the pedal chain derailleur.

Thanks for the info on greasing the rod & bearings. I used a good synthetic grease from Advance Auto (think it was called "green grease") which seemed to work well. The squealing noise seems to be gone, though I only rode it up and down the street a bit.

Before writing the thread I did slide the post on the 10t sprocket side out to get a look down the shaft. That's when I saw the ball bearing and realized the shaft that the rod sits in was not greased. When I put the assembly back together today I noticed the rod on the 10t sprocket side didn't seem to seat all the way. About 1/8" more was exposed than before. I used the three screws on the outer cover to seat the rod which made the clutch cable arm rather tight in all directions. I didn't remove anything but the rod (which was just sort of loosely in there to begin with). Can you think of anything that would cause it to sit about 1/8" shallower in the shaft than it did before?

I took a quick test ride up and down my block and the clutch operates just fine engaging and disengaging fully, but that issue troubled me a bit.