Two brakes are better than one

This has been a productive week. I just finished getting the front brake all hooked up and working. I was really surprised - everything worked on the first try! I was tempted to skip the teflon tape when I was connecting the brake line, but thought better of it.

All I did was run a bunch of fluid through the system to flush it out and it's good to go! Tonight's run around the cul-de-sac was smooth and uneventful considering I had two working brakes (front and rear). Yay!

I would have had the speedometer cable hooked up, but unfortunately I can't find that cable. I can find every other cable (Tach cable, clutch cable, throttle cables) except that one. I'm hoping that it's just hiding in one of my totes or something like that. If not, I'm hoping it won't be too hard to find a replacement.

I'm getting to the point where I really need to find some actual EV bits - like a motor, controller, batteries, etc. Sweet!

Rolling Chassis!

It's back! I was so excited that I took the chassis for a spin around the cul-de-sac. As it turns out, my street is much more downhill then I ever suspected. Fortunately, the back brake (while not fully adjusted) operated enough to prevent another trip to the hospital.

While trying to figure out how to fill the forks with oil, I ran across this little gem from Walmart:



While it looks like something from a slasher flic, it's a "Flavor Injector." It has two stellar properties that I needed:

• It was accurate enough to measure the amount of oil I need to inject
• The needle part allowed me to inject the oil down in the fork itself instead of waiting for it to drain in slowly. I customized the syringe by cutting of the end, but otherwise it performed brilliantly.

Next up is finishing up the front brake. After I took the pic, I went ahead and mounted the front caliper and the brake lever. The pads and the master are in great shape, but some of the bits in-between might need some love. The bits are around 35 years old, so it's a wonder any of it works at all.

The Rear is in Gear

Well, it's not really in gear per se, but the back tire is on! And you were probably thinking that because it took me eons to get the rear brake apart that it would take me forever to get it back together. Well you were wrong!

The drawback of it taking so long to get the bike back together is that I had to do a lot of referring to the manual to make sure I was getting everything back in the right place. Fortunately, I only had to put the sprocket on twice. Also, I'm not putting the cotter pins or torquing anything down until it's all together and lined up correctly. In particular, it looks like getting the rear brake pedal adjusted is going to take a bit of fiddling. The good news, however, is that it (the brake) seems to work fine even after my taking it apart and cleaning it up.

The next step is to get the front forks back together and get the front wheel back on. Then it will be looking like a proper motorcycle again!

ReVolt!

If you haven't already seen it, there is a sweet open source DC controller project in the works by the name of ReVolt (I dig the name).

The controller is one of the more expensive bits of an EV. It looks like building this yourself would save gobs of money (a good thing).

The project is still getting off the ground, but a few prototypes have been put together and it looks like it's working well. I'm excited because this hits on all the cylinders of my interest in building EV's:

• It's DIY so I have the pride of building it and I know how to fix it if it goes wrong
• It's cheap
• Did I mention it's cheap?

The designer of the unit is trying to get some kits together to make it easier for non electronics pros (e.g. me) put together a unit pretty easily.

Once I get the bike to a rolling chassis, I plan on putting one of these together. The idea is that I'll testbed the controller in the bike and either re-use or make another one for my eventual car conversion.

Head on over to Paul and Sabrina's EV Stuff for more information on the controller and some videos of their conversion in motion.

Victory is mine!

Yay! I finally got the rear drum brake assembly separated from the axle! A while back, I was a bit flummoxed on how to remove it. It wasn't textbook, but a monkey wrench, some cursing and a whole lot of PB blaster eventually delivered victory.

I'm stoked - now I can start putting everything back together and get back to a rolling chassis.

The new shop is up and running

Moving day has come and gone. Finally, I'm all settled in the new space.

The new shop a big improvement over the old one in many ways... For one, I took the time to epoxy the floors before moving everything in. Also, this garage has a cutout that was a perfect fit for my workbench. It's nice being able to have the workbench recessed because it doesn't take up valuable floorspace.



The EV bike isn't in frame for these shots, but it's there! Another bonus for this garage because the workbench has its own little cutout, I was able to set up shelves all along the back of the garage for storage. Finally, all of my spare parts are in one place (instead of the basement, attic, etc).

Now that everything is set up, I don't have an excuse not to get back to work on the bike!

Nail in the Tire

Wow - I dodged a bullet on this one. First of all, while I'm still working on my EV bike project, I do still need to get out and ride, so I do have an ICE bike. It's an old 85 Vulcan 700 - a cool bike. It was ahead of it's time in several ways (two spark plugs for each cylinder, auto canceling turn signals, hazard signal function, etc).

I just put this bike on the road recently and had to get a new back tire to pass inspection. No problem it's money well spent. Less than 200 miles later, I picked up a nail. What is more odd is the way in which it lodged in the tire. When I picked up the bike at the shop (they've been in business for years and have seen a lot of tires), they asked me if I had been shot at with a nail gun.

That tire was so new it still had the little nipple things in the center of the tire. *sigh*

The odd thing is that I remember when I picked it up. I was riding along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I started hearing a subtle but strange high pitched sound from the right hand side of the bike. Well, that's where the nail lodged. I had only been riding this bike for a short time, so I didn't stop and check. I wish I had - the last part of my ride had me doing over 60 MPH on a separated highway.

While I normally examine my tires from time to time to make sure that nothing is wrong, my wife beat me to it. She was down in the garage and said "OMG - look at that!".

So, I now have a new tire. I hate having to pay again, but it beats tire failure!