Shoulda took more pictures at this point. But in the heat of creative bliss, I forgot to snap a few shots of the changes. The next step is the cargo deck. A simple frame built entirely from dumpster dive collected electrical conduit. Damn this thin stuff is hard to weld, not to mention the zink I'm huffing as I burn it. I try not to think about that, and do it outside.
Once more or less finished with the welding, this shot shows test fitting it to the frame. It will also somewhat help stiffen up the extension, bracing it from bending upwards. As stuff breaks, I'll know where to add in some diagonal braces. For now, I just want it to hold my batteries.
In this shot, you can also see how I repositioned the extensions to outside the donor frame dropouts.
A chunk of wood is then screwed to the top of the deck, allowing the saddle bags to attach to the cargo deck with more wood screws. For now, the controller is just strapped to the rear stay. This allows it to plug directly to the motor, without the extra long motor cable.
Repeating the first picture. Additional modifications include a cruiser spring seat, and Riser BMX handlebars. Rides real nice now, leans into turns beautifully, and like all longtails a much nicer ride for your ass. Your body weight should be centered on the bike between the wheels, not right over the rear wheel. The panniers can each hold 48v 15 ah, so very long rides are possible.
Much yet to do. I'm definitely thinking about repositioning the seatpost rearward, for a more pedal forward seat position. More importantly, I need to weld a chunk of steel to the left side dropout, so I can drill some holes and mount a rear disk brake. And then Lengthen the shifter cables. At present, the rear shifter is set to one gear.
And lastly, I need to grind on all the welds, inspect, and reweld all the defective spots. But all in all, I'm quite happy how this turned out. It's long, but still possible to fit on the bike rack of my Subaru, so I can take this bike with me on a road trip easy. The big frankenbike, that requires towing a trailer.
What I've learned here will be applied to another build later, one where I will try to make it somewhat pretty. Stretching a cheap beach cruiser. Not sure what size wheel I want for that one. I might revert to 26" for it, and only stretch it about 6 inches .
That would give me, an 18" stretch expedition longtail, a 12" stretch 20" wheel runabout, and a 6' stretch beach cruiser.