Warning to All! - Everyone look at this!

Nomad and eDJ have good points. Well said both. If quality control becomes the end consumers' job then the jobs are created by these "crap shoot" motors and building them better due to the demand for higher quality. Imagine an American company that does only Asian two stroke upgrades and mods. The Japanese learned this, from simple transistor radios to Sony, Toyota to Lexus. We vote with our dollars and the producers want our vote.
 
Nomad got it. This guy was using a 79.oo bike trying to go 30 mph for sustained length of time. The bike was designed to go 12mph and that is just as fast as it should go. Anything above that is a gamble. The little happy engine is a helper engine for motor assist. we have fun making them run better than intended and then use discretion when riding, some through caution to the wind, but I think most know the safe speed for a 79.oo bike. And I think he over torqued the bolts, I still have the original ones after 3 years running. I say he did not have the chain adjusted correctly and it derailed and jerked the engine over and broke the motor studs, look at the L/H cover, and the wadded up chain. Have fun, Dave

PS: Happy Times forever, and put the pedals back on. Its not a motorcycle.
 
NunyaBidness said:
I also agree with Deacon, and I'll add this, there ARE ways to make these motors safe. I have done it and many others have, if they hadn't, I would not have know what to do in order to make it safe.
I can understand your frustrations, I've had a few myself, but I stand by my statement that they can be made safe.
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When the engine mounts failed and the whole engine fell off the bike, the chain, after flying off the drive sprocket, took a large chunk right out of the side of the engine. This is what tells me that the whole thing is constructed of such low quality metal that there is no way to make them safe. Replace all the nuts and bolts you want, the whole thing is so cheesy, it could blow apart at any time. I'll stick to riding my Yamaha. Yes, I'm faced with all the dangers of the open road, and the thrills of cruising on two wheels, but at least I can feel comfortable that the machine I'm on is made of real metal.
 
how did you feel before the studs broke? when you was riding 30mph , were you enjoying yourself and your bike? I noticed you dont have any pedals but you have pegs; why? "the moment you live , you live for the moment" repair your chengine and get back on your horse instead of shooting it!
 
G's!

These are chinese bicycle motor kits- strictly for novelty, unless you are one of hundreds to use them for daily transportation or even looong evening rides.

Stuff happens and it's not just because these are cheap chinese kits.

They ARE cheap chinese kits.

Fix your bike engine, rally against them to the govt' who doesn't care or listen, or pick up golf.

We get the message, your bike broke, you're PO'ed and life is short, freedom of choice and all that.
 
brucemg51 said:
See I have this pesky thing called a conscience. I wouldn't sell something that I know is unsafe, even if used as directed. I've sold many motorcycles. Life is short, and I wouldn't want to think that someone got killed because I sold them something that I knew was dangerous, and I've had many opportunities do that. Thanks for the offer, but I'll put it in the trash compactor myself.
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Is that where you put the bicycle sprocket, pedals and chain perhaps before the studs gave away under the strain of a no up to speed start? Sorry for your misfortune and am glad you're OK- you ought focus your ire at the mechanic who installed the faulty soft studs. Happier Future Trails Walter F.
 
Sorry to see this. Our decisions are always a gamble on 2 wheels, 4 wheels or flying. I try to engineer these possibilities out while building the thing. Thanks for the notice!
 
filestyle1 said:
how did you feel before the studs broke? when you was riding 30mph , were you enjoying yourself and your bike? I noticed you dont have any pedals but you have pegs; why? "the moment you live , you live for the moment" repair your chengine and get back on your horse instead of shooting it!
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Was I enjoying myself? Yes, I was. I understand, "You pays your money, you takes your chances", but there is a basic difference between something your life depends on, and other stuff. It's not like I bought a cheap quality Chinese made television for half the price of every other brand and now I'm hopping mad because it broke. The TV breaking down would not be endangering life and limb.
I removed the pedals because they serve so little purpose, that considering the additional weight and maintainance, they aren't worth keeping. Think about it. Everyone here says that the engine is powerful enough to take them up any hill they encounter, without the need for pedaling. Then, the only purpose they serve is starting the engine. I realized after a while, that 90% of the building and maintainance problems I was having involved chains and sprockets. You'll notice in the photos that there is no chain tensioner. That's not because it fell off along with the engine. It isn't necessary with only one chain. You can adjust the tension just fine without it, if that's the only chain. So, consider that you have removed the tensioner, a chain, pedals, crankset, lever, cable, and shifting mechanism, and you see that you have made the whole thing lighter, simpler, and a heck of a lot easier to maintain. I've been starting the bike just by rolling it along, jumping on, and popping the clutch lever; no problem.
I agree that these things should be consider nothing more than bicycles, with helper motors for hills. However, everyone who inquires about them has the same first question; how fast will it go. If I tell them that it isn't meant to go any faster than they could pedal the bike anyway, I'm not likely to sell many of them.
 
LOL...

if the engine falls off the bike stops. It might be a rough stop but it will stop. I'm sorry my fear is of the cars out there running over me. They would be there for a scooter or a motorcycle. I have ridden them all and felt no safer on any of them.

Life's a crap shoot, live bold or stay in bed. From a novel I read or wrote not sure which.
 
I think after a day's reading on this forum, you should walk away with the idea that the STUDS need to be replaced with the highest quality you can get. best would be to get some grade 8 bolts and cut the heads off. We all (mostly) know this. Have I done it yet? No. Will I? Absolutely.

I'm one of the many people here that do not see this as just a hobby or "toy." I use the bike for my daily transportation.

You're definitely entitled to your opinion. But just because yours failed, doesn't mean these motors are going to kill everybody. No offense, but honestly to me this sounds like a person that has the brakes fail in their car randomly is now running around "OMG DONT DRIVE CARS YOU WILL DIE THEY ARE UNSAFE"

How did you have the motor mounted in the front? It's hard to tell in the pics, but it looks like you drilled through the frame.

So you mounted a cheap Chinese motor kit on a cheap Walmart bike (probably made in China). Looks like you compromised the integrity of that cheap bike frame by drilling it, and you removed the pedals and associated hardware thus improperly using said cheap motor and bike, and you're surprised something went wrong?

I'm sorry it happened to you, and you're right, it could have been much much worse, and I'm happy it wasn't. I think quite a few people here have had motor mounts break on them. But I think we all know that riding a bicycle (especially an $80 walmart special) at 30mph is dangerous and could end up with your untimely demise. That's a risk we all take and try to minimize.

Just my $0.02.
 
hence the name "motor assisted bicycle" if you dont have the pedals it s really called a scooter! if you had pedals on the bike you possibly could have pedaled the bike home instead of pushing it or leaving it for dead! as far as maintenance goes , there's not much maintenance on the crank assembly! and if you had the cranks in you would of had the tensioner in place as well! therefore you might have reduced vibrations in the bike that may have caused the studs to break in the first place. i have had two studs break on me as well but not at the same time and I replaced mine with american thread 1/4-20 bolts and have'nt had a problem since. real sorry to hear about your misfortune and hope you might have second thoughts about scrapping the motor.
"one mans junk is another mans treasure"
 
Is that footpegs I see there in place of the crank? I thought these things were supposed to be pedal assisted, starting from a dead stop without the aid of pedaling is gonna strain things. 30 mph is pretty fast on one of these things, I suspect if your yamaha spent it's life with the tach buried in red parts would eventually start flying off of it too.
 
>>if the engine falls off the bike stops. It might be a rough stop but it will stop. <<

If you're lucky, you'll stop safely. Or, you may come to a stop when your head slams into the pavement.

>>Life's a crap shoot,<<

Professional crapshooters know how to improve their odds of winning.

>>live bold or stay in bed. <<

As I said in an earlier post, I do live bold. I've been a biker since 1967, even before there were very many Japanese bikes on the roads here. But, I also live smart, that's why I'm still living, not because I have chosen to stay in bed. Besides, at my age, people die in bed.
 
>>I think after a day's reading on this forum, you should walk away with the idea that the STUDS need to be replaced with the highest quality you can get. best would be to get some grade 8 bolts and cut the heads off. We all (mostly) know this. Have I done it yet? No. Will I? Absolutely.<<

Why stop there? You're going to replace something with something of higher quality, even though you haven't yet had a problem with it. The rest of the thing is of no higher quality than those mounting bolts. If I compromised the integrity of the frame by drilling through it to mount the engine, I was given good reason to think that wouldn't be a problem. The kit included a mounting adapter for oversized frames which could only be used by drilling through the frame. I do agree that 30mph on a cheap bicycle is asking for trouble though. Regardless of the quality of the kit, the whole rest of the bike isn't meant to do that. Stll, that's the first question I always get. "How fast will it go?"
 
brucemg51 said:
Yeah, if he was spending as much to build the hot rod as a Corvette would cost, that's probably what I would tell him. Just my 2 cents worth, of course.
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There's a big difference though between a hotrod Mustang, a 50's hotrod, and a stock corvette.

I would, however, buy a scooter or motorcycle instead of spending the same amount on a motorized bike. But that's mostly because I wanted a scooter to begin with but couldn't afford $1000 for a scooter, so I settled on a $200 motorbike for now.
 
>>You're definitely entitled to your opinion. But just because yours failed, doesn't mean these motors are going to kill everybody. No offense, but honestly to me this sounds like a person that has the brakes fail in their car randomly is now running around "OMG DONT DRIVE CARS YOU WILL DIE THEY ARE UNSAFE"<<

Where did I say, "Don't ride any sort of two wheeled, motorized vehicle, they're all unsafe!"
 
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