A few days ago the new forks arrived. I got around to taking off the old ones and installing the new ones. But first a few pics of them for comparison. The new ones are an inch longer in the forks and the down tube is about 2" longer. The new forks are about 3/4" wider too...making room to fit the disk brake. It's hard to see in the picture, but shortcircuit911 welded about a 3" long section in the middle of the down tube. TIG welding is the bomb! Anyway, the modified new forks were a perfect replacement for the old ones and I got another 2" of height on the handlebars to boot.
This is a small piece of flat steel. It's about 1.5" long. 6061 aluminum, would have worked, but this was a scrap off of something else that was already cut to the length I needed so I just used it. I'll probably take it off and shape it some more later, but it's a perfect fit to pull the top of the caliper out from the fork and allow the bottom bolt hole on the caliper to bolt in directly to the flange welded onto the forks. The adapter is bare steel, I'll need to clean it up some more and then paint it so it doesn't eventually rust. I've used some of this same steel on my blue scooter to reinforce the front folding section. It's been in place for at least 6 months and shows no evidence of rust so maybe I don't care too much. The top hole on the flange is elongated so I can slide the brake in or out a little, but this is dead center in the brake pads. I probably didn't need to do it, but I added a nylon nut to the M6 bolt in the flange. If there is a bolt that could interfere with the brake rotor, it would be this one. I would not want to find myself stopping suddenly when that bolt caught in the brake rotor and I go flying over the handlebars. The adapter is threaded and the bolt has locktite on it, it's already unlikely to ever come loose, but now it's virtually impossible.
and the old adapter that came with the caliper...like anybody cares.
The fit is pretty tight and there is almost no room between the rotor and the flange. The bottom bolt is 8mm. I tapped M8 threads into the bottom hole in the flange and then used some locktite on the threads. It ought to stay put. The top bolt is M6. This brake is not going anywhere. You can't see it in the pictures, but the piece of steel was the exact width needed to just kiss the inside of the rotor with the inner brake pad. The 8mm bolt needed a couple of shims. I used 2 washers and a nut to get it just right. Also, the width of the axle is 1/32 too narrow for the forks so I added a shim washer on the axle opposite side from the rotor. It's all a perfect fit. Almost like someone had a clue what they were doing! The rotor just skims the surface of the inner brake pad. When I squeeze the lever on the brake caliper it locks up nicely with no flexing or distortion of the rotor.
This scooter has seen so many changes to it since it got ridden last...some 6 months ago. Tonight is the first time it has been on two wheels since a long time ago.
I have 3 things left to do before I can ride it. I'm SOOOOOO close!!!
1. The front brake cable is too short. I think I have a longer one somewhere...so that will need to be replaced.
2. My thumb throttle is DOA. I have more linear halls so I need to swap that out and hopefully it's fixed.
3. Bundle up the phase and power wires so they don't drag on the ground.
Other stuff to come soon...
1. Once I have the Power Velocity 12 fet controller tested out and configured, I'll swap out it's IRF4110 fets for AOT290's and then I'll be able to crank the throttle...until then I'll ride it casually so I don't burn out the 2500 watt Grinfineon controller on my 7000 watt C80100.
2. This may or may not need tweaking...don't know yet until I ride around a little. The gearing is currently an estimation of what I think will be a good balance of torque and speed. I may go up or down a few teeth on the motor sprocket to get that squared away.
3. The LIPOs are a temporary solution. I have loads of 18650's. I have a spot welder now and want to make up a LION battery pack for the scooter. Depending on how it does on 48 volts, I may go to 60 volts. The controller is good for 90 volts...so the sky is more or less the limit. If I go above 60 volts, I will have to get a higher voltage DC-DC converter. It's only good to 60 volts.