Crystalyte rear 408 identification and help

Hi everyone,

I found a pretty decent bike while dumpster diving just before Christmas.
It is a 2008 Vario'Bike Allpass, a french brand, equiped with a carbon front fork.

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It has a crystalyte 408 rear hub motor laced to a 28" rim. Controler claims to be a Journey 36V.
Searching for informations on the internet, I can't find the same motor design.
Every motor is flat but mine has some kind of flower shape on the flanges.
Do you have any information about this one ?

The shaft is quite rusty and very difficult to rotate.
I want to restore it but the previous owner put some blue silicon caulking on both flanges before screwing them back on the motor...
Does anybody know how to dismount this caulked unit ?

Thanks a lot for your help !

John, from France.

So I managed to open the motor and boy... restoration is the right word !

First I broke the silicon seal by rotating the flanges.
Then I pulled the rotor out of the stator using a bearing puller.

I ended up tearing out some of the rotor housing so a little bit more work will be necessary to put it on the road again but nothing impossible :wink:





I really want to slap the previous owner for putting silicon on this motor, moisture could'nt escape so moisture sat here and did its job...

The cost for me still equals to nothing so I will proceed with the restoration :thumb:

I let you enjoy the open pics

View attachment 3

Was fixable, but that broken flange is not very fixable. I suppose you could weld it, but not near worth the effort even if you are an expert aluminum welder.

I'm curious how the flange broke, did you have the bolts out on both sides? If not, you should have had the puller on the side of the motor that still had the bolts, pushing the core out of the other side.

That is the winner for the rustiest motor I recall seeing here though.

Great bike find in any case, and once you pop the magnets out of the motor, they are great for all kinds of things, since they are so strong. I tack important stuff to my fridge with them, or hold things to be welded.

Kingfish has a good thread for DIY Repair Rust and Restoration (might not be the exact title).

Fixing the flange...that might take some doing.

If it is steel, you can simply weld it.

If it's aluminum, you may have to remove the rest of teh broken flange, then make a completely new ring to go in it's place (I'd use steel, cuz it's more forgiving as a "solitary ring" for this purpose). You *might* be able to bolt a "patch" across the breaks, but I don't know that will hold with the stress of spokes pulling on them.


Alternately, you can just take all the flanges off, and use it as a Stokemonkey style middrive.

Thank you for your reply and support :wink:

I removed screws on both sides before pulling. The aluminum casting looks really soft.
When I started to pull, I could here and see the parts coming out step by step in a "tac...tac...tac..." noise, not in a smooth and silent sliding motion. This is due to the rusty state of the assembly.
The disappointment came when the case broke at the very last turn of the ratchet on the puller :?

I will not try to weld on the original rotor because there is not enough distance between the heat point and the magnets and they hate to be heated.

The plan is to go with an external sleeve that includes a complete new ring, all made of steel, in one piece. The sleeve may also act as a magnetic flux ring and I am sure I will gain some thousands of Watts and torque in the process :lol:

of course the bearings will be replaced because now they are grinding a lot when turned by hand. I need to find the right replacement because they are not standard bearings, they are not symetrical which means they are angular contact bearings.

But first things first, I need to test the motor and the controller so I will remove the spokes and the rim, clean the rust on everything, put the old bearings back and plug everything to a battery.
If everything runs fine, I will start to draw and machine a prosthesis spokes flange and go further with the inquiry on the bearings.

As I said, for now, the cost is still nothing for me, only playing with a dumpster find so I will go on and check if it worth reparing.

I'll keep you posted

Thanks for the reply, I figured you took out all the screws, but others have misunderstood how the puller works.

so that comment was aimed more at others reading. It was just that rusted up.