what did you do to your motorized bicycle today?

[Dan]

Cool story Greg. Ya gotta love when stuff like that happens.

........................................................................................

"my wife used to complain about my parts" Mine still does

 

[xseler]

So cool GN! When I was in school, the instructor was showing us a Bridgeport mill. To change tool speed/gear ratio, you turn a dial. He had no idea why I got so excited about that but instead of changing the belt ratio by hand as you would on a drill press, ya dial it. Would work exactly like what your wanting to do.

Dangit, now your gonna beat me to it, eh? lol


Would be wide but perfect for our thing.

Why couldn't you rig up a CVT 'transmission' from an old MTD riding mower? It's just three pulleys with the center pulley having a sliding cone to vary the front to back gearing ratio........ > <> <

Instead of having a chain final drive, it would be a belt.


Or.......do something like the old Snapper riders or old Jacobsen push mowers used. A rubber wheel that moved in or out on a pulley to vary the speed?

 

[Dan]

Awesome thought Xman. Repurposing is bigtime the way to go. Already mass produced (Cheap) and gives you a starting point.

Got me thinking. A cone shaped driver, centrifugally actuated by RPM. A CVT but made long and slim for a motorized bicycle.

 

[culvercityclassic]

Had all the family over and friends, took them all on a nice beach ride... 80 degree weather made it nice....

 

[placidscene]

I have similar stories about things breaking around the house and fixing them with random left over parts I had laying around. My wife gets it now.

I wanted to ride out to my parents today. My dad is building an awsome
treehouse for my kids and I was helping him with it. But I knew I wouldn't be going home till after dark.
I have been working on it for over a year now, and every time he sees it, it seems to be broken! I think he thinks it never works. Now I have it working great and I want him to see it work finally.
I think we'll have them over Saturday, so I hope it still works then! Lol

 

[CTripps]

"Parts I haven't needed yet". Good one.

I collect any and all 'useful looking' stuff I find.. fasteners, bits of metal, bits of stuff off of machinery.. When we moved to the west coast I had to give up a decade's worth of neat junk and (potentially) useful bits of stuff and start collecting again.

On Topic: I unlocked and rolled out the bikes so I could clean up the workshop/garage, then rolled 'em back in again and locked 'em up. From my last (non-motorized bicycle) project I had sawdust everywhere.

 

[rogergendron1]

today .... i almost died !!!!!!!!!!!!!

yup !

so i am cruising along at a good 35 mph high rpms lots of torque at the peak of my power band when sundenly i hear snap pop and thats when my pedals start whipping around and circles as fast as possable and smash my knees into the handle bars and gastank !!! so i lift my legs and look down and think wooooooh whats going on here, i pull the clutch in and put my feel back on the pedals and then... snap !!!! the pedals stop and so does the rear tire ! i am now doing a 30mph slide in 2 in of snow at 930 at night !!! i slid for about 25 feet and it was the most heart pounding thing that has happend to me in a long time considering i was keeping up with and in traffic !!!!!

i can not believe i did not fall ! srs there must have been an angel holding me up cause there were cars in front and behind me as i was riding in the road and keeping up with regular trafic !

my rear tire was locked up solid and will not move ! had to walk my bike home.

so i get home dragging the bike and dissasemble the whole rear hub, as i am pulling the axle shaft out of the coaste break hub i see the first break shoe fall out then the second falls out ........... well half of the second lol and the other half was cracked off and turned sidways and ground into the hub and locked the wheel up solid ! the damn coaster break shoe snapped in half and turned sideways and destroyed my rear hub !

i will never use a coaster break again !

i decided to run a 7 speed mountain bike cassett and a derailure, i had to seperate my chainstays as they were an inch to close for the 7 speed hub to fit, but with my foot on one side and my hand pulling on the other i was able to seperate the chainstays enough to fit a 7 speed cassett rim ! i got my 44 t rear all bolted up and the 7 speed free wheel on and wow what a differance ! the tire seems t spin so mutch more freely and i love the ability to be able to pedal backwards to regain footing positions !

so basicaly i had to convert my single speed coaster over to a 7 speed mountain bike casset, i dont have the derailure set up yet cause i am not shure if i want to run fron gears or just run the 7 speed in the rear and use a 36t front sprocket, so i have the original chain from the cruiser running to the middle gear of the casset so its tight and i can pedal for now. i will probably just go with the 7 speed and a rear derailure and thats it keep a single 36t sprocket in the front.

i only gave it one test ride with the new setup and wow ! i like being able to pedal backwards and freewheel !!!! and once the derailer is hooked up tomorrow i am going to have one sweet cruiser !

BE WARNED !!!!!! CHEAP COASTER HUBS ARE DANGEROUS !!!!! KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THEM AND KEEP THEM GREASED UP AND PROPERLY ADJUSTED !!!! IF YOU HEAR IT SQUEAKING OR SQUEALING OR IT FEELS LIKE ITS CATCHING OR DRAGING, STOP !!!!! STOP !!!!! STOP !!!!! DO NOT RIDE IT !!!! TAKE IT APART AND FIX OR REPLACE IT ! A SINGLE BROKEN BREAK SHOE CAN SEND YOU FLYING !!!!! IT WILL LOCK UP YOUR TIRE AND SEND YOU FLYING !!!!! BE WARNED !

Now i have to find a rear break that will fit, i will probably cut the rear v breaks, post tubing and all right off of my junk mountain bike and cut the tubing with the break posts on it and bend it so it fits around my bike frame where it should go to meet up with the rim and then weld the post into place directly on my frame, basicly i am going to weld v break posts directly to my frame. it would make since as i am now using the front HPR shocks that came off that bike and the v breaks that came with it, it would make since to add the matching set of rear v breaks too.

well this beach cruiser just keeps evolving LOL.... front shocks, modded motor, strait bars, and now a 7 speed derailur, next mabey a shift kit ! would love a 7 speed motor bike !

 

[Dave31]

Glad you did not go down roger!

And yes maintenance on coaster brakes is a must and frequent checks will avoid future problems.

One trick i use is to listen to my hubs using a stethoscope or even a screwdriver. I don't rely on this but it does help me hear if there is a problem or lack of grease between regular greasing and maintenance.

It takes a little practice but after time you can judge if you need to do further maintenance.

 

[fasteddy]

Yikes! You were riding with the Angels for sure and some alert drivers as well since they didn't hit you as you were sliding along.

Best news is that you are here to talk about it.

Steve.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

My word Roger I'm glad you're here to be able to talk about your close shave. I think tonight there will be a lot of forum members busy with checking over their coaster hubs for faults.

 

[truckd]

Mind if I ask what rear hub you were using? and did you thank God for the protection ?
who is your M/B insurance carrier Angelic Ins Corp. ?

Glad to hear yer still with us!

 

[placidscene]

Wow! Crazy story.

I took one final test ride today before I start riding to work again tomorrow.
After the bike warmed up it started running better than ever! I think it liked the colder temps. It was about 50 deg.
It will be around 40 in the morning for my first couture sixpence i parked it last year (2012) when I started trouble shooting electrical issues.

Wondering how traffic will react to my whelan flashing police taillight.

 

[Cruise]

I started hearing my pedal-side chain guard getting rattly so I took it off and re-did the rivets. Now it's sorted.
Of course while doing that I found another issue. My new rear fender was cracked half way through. As it's pre- paint job still, I chose to do some creative custom work with some ally sheet and a rivet gun.
A warning before looking at the pic: some viewers may experience feelings of jealousy at the craftsmanship used.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

Rogergendron, sorry to hear that problem, but lucky your OK!

I was thinking about coaster brakes doing that recently. I friend of mine got a bike and it would lock up occasionally. He used it hard though. I looked and saw that at one time the clamp that holds the arm for the hub came loose. That I told him was causing the problem. But after that was fixed by getting the clamp bolt back in place it still had problems. Some times he would pedal and it would just slip.

For myself I just know if you don't have hand brakes, at least one as well as the coaster brake, what happens if the chain falls off and you going down a big hill. It happened to me.

http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?p=532842#post532842 page 1 post 5 I replied to this thread about that experience.

Getting rid of coaster brake all together, I can say I did just a bit more (no pedal crank), but it is not legal on roads, only off road in motor cycle parks or private land. It was a bicycle but now it is classified special motor cycle by DMV.

MT

 

[GearNut]

Wow Roger! I am glad that you are still with us!
You must have had some Angels watching over you during that crazy ordeal.

Sheldon has a tutorial on how to make a simple jig to hold the brake perches perfectly for welding.

http://sheldonbrown.com/cantilever-fixture.html

I totally agree with your decision to convert over to direct pull brakes.
They do stop better and are much easier to service.

 

[rogergendron1]

My word Roger I'm glad you're here to be able to talk about your close shave. I think tonight there will be a lot of forum members busy with checking over their coaster hubs for faults.

yep and this is what you should be looking for !!!!!!!!!

1 there was excesive wear on the break shoes themselves but hard to see from the low quality photo
2 the pad snapped from the shock of a simple and normal pressure back pedal, i guess a normal back pedal at 35mph is probably placing 5-10 times the force on the pads it normaly would at 10mph lol
3 when the pad broke the smaller piece slipped out of the spring and cup and flipped up sideways and gouged into the inner wall of the hub causing extreem gouging and scoring and nearly instantly siezed the wheel ! you want to cheack for scoring of the hubs inner wall when regreasing and going over your coaster hub ! excessive scoring in only one spot could mean the pads are not contacting correctly with there full surface aria.
4 the broken pad smashed the spring that squeezes them them together and snapped it. you want to make shure that spring is not worn and has pleanty of elastisity.

this was just a generic coaster hub IE shimano 110 style..... its a hub a lot of people use so pay attention to it and i recomend a over haul every 1,000 miles !!!! lol if i had done one at 1,000 miles i would have seen that the pads were worn and were grinding a score into the hub wall and i could have replace the pads and sanded the hub wall smooth with scotch bright and saved myself a lot of trouble and a rear hub !

most hub aare similar unless you have seaed multiple gears but most are just like this, some may have 3 or 4 pads some have 2 but the designe is similar and if a pad breaks at 30 - 40mph.......... you better have been drinking red bull cause your going to need wings !!!!!

luckily i only have a small bruise on my knee where it smashed the gastank when the pedals locked up and spun with and at the speed of the tire ! its when i tried to pull the clutch in and break by back pedaling when all the fun happened lol !


edit....... i honestly can not believe i did not fall..... it was the longest skid i ever did in my life, in the snow tooo ! well aside from in a car on pourpose but lol thats another story. it was like in my head i was thinking ahhhhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit ahhhhhhhh goooooona faaaaaaaaaall gooooona faaaaaaaaaaal aaaahhhhhh here it comes..... gona faaaaaall .......... never happened lol i stayed up the whole time with some creative front breaking ! wow........wow.... it was like i just kept going in a slow mow long ars skid.... LOL

 

[crassius]

tektro makes a very nice caliper brake that will bolt right to the rear fender mount - there are clones of this brake cheaper too

the compound calipers have almost the stopping power of disks

 

[rogergendron1]

any way ...... enough of that.....lol


i got rid of the coaster break all together and now have the 7 speed shimano cassett and shimano derailure setup hooked up, but i have no cable long enough to make it to my handle bars, plus i am going to have to use a right side 7 speed twist shifter that i have .... upside down on the left side so it will not interfear with the throttle. no worries it will look and work just fine... only the numbers will be upside down lol ! that and i need a master link for the 21 spd mnt bk chain i pulled from the doner bike, right now i am running a bmx chain on the center gear with the derailure set to that position. it works just fine for now but i cant wait to hit up the bike shop later for
1 a new long cable
2 a master link for the multie speed chain
3 a large side pull rim break for the rear (just untill i get the post for the v breaks welded on)
4 a dual pull break lever

ohh yes .... i just installed a 36t chainring and greased up my bottom bracket, the bike should be real easy to pedal with a single 36 and 7 speeds, it just seemed like the right gear ratio for a heavy cruiser... i think with a 40 or 44 it would be to hard to pedal to be able to use all the gears making them useless lol i want to be able to use em if i have em so i went real small on the chain ring sprocket, at least now i will be able to pedal through all 7 gears if i want.

after all that lil stuff i should be able to tune in the shifter and adjust bolth breaks on the one lever and my bike will be the sweetest cruiser in town !

sorry about the lighting my bike/ engine shop is a large room in a basment with only a single light lol i use a small lamp where ever i am working and the cieling light just keeps it bright enough so i can see enough to find my tools and move around, its cool though i have a masive 20ft x 20ft room all to myself just for tools, bike stuff, equipment and engine building !

 

[xseler]

In the near future, I'm gonna solve any potential rear hub failures......

 

[placidscene]

Today I rode to work and back home for the first time since fall of 2012.
Bike did fine. I guess I need a smaller jet though, it is still 4 stroking in the top end.
That means smaller jet right?
Anyway. It's 12.75 miles each way and I made in 35 minutes both directions, including all of the traffic lights. It takes me close to 30 minutes to drive it!
Not too bad, and the ble gets 5 times better fuel mileage than my crown Vic.