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Chain to wheel drive my1016 project/build along

Buzzard

🧲 New user
Joined
Jun 26, 2025
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2
Location
On, Canada
Hello everyone. This is my first post to ES (amazing site BTW) I Have been reading and working on bikes for a little over a year.

I have a few successful hub conversions under my belt, but with this project I want something different. I wanted to do a mid-drive, so I could utilize my bikes gears, have a greater efficiency, and have something that will really hold up to offroading. Hopefully on a mountain bike.

This bike system is a work in progress at the moment, so the first few posts will just be catching up, sorry for the lack of pictures.

I started acquiring parts for this build a couple months ago, slowly but surely, the first thing I got was the motor, model MY1016 Z3 rated for 24 volts and "1000 watts" but according to the sticker the rated current is 14 amps, which works out to 336 watts. This motor also seems to be about the same size as the my1016 250 watt rated motor, with an added gearbox. So I am skeptical of this 1000 watt rating. anyway its rated for 2950 rpm and has a reduction of 9.78:1. I'm just going to round numbers and say that works out to give or take 300 RPM.

My plan was to do a mid-drive with this mounted to the seat tube, with a chain connected to a crankset on the left side. But this motor ended up being just too wide to fit between the cranks, so I would have to have put it in an awkward position high on the seat tube, or on the bottom tube towards the front of the inner triangle. Also I would have had to find a way to clamp/mount it in place, and this motor does not have good mounting points other than the ones on the side with the sprocket. So I ended up buying a bracket to mount the motor to the rear triangle. But I was having chain alignment issues trying to do the mid drive, the bottom of the chain would rub on the bottom tube of the rear triangle. I tried different chain tensioners to hold the chain away from the frame and I was able to get it to work without rubbing, but no matter how I tried the chain wouldn't align very neatly/straight, always a degree of cross chain, and the chain would be either extremely tight or rubbing the frame.

The bike did work though, I had only put a 250 watt controller on because I happened to have a couple laying around. But it would turn the pedals with incredible force. I never took it very far because I didn't think it would hold up, and was worried the chain tensioner would go into my spokes. Also I have never used a mid drive bike before this and this felt extremely strange, there was no freewheeling chainring/cranks, and the motor was controlled by throttle, might feel more natural if it was pedal assist. And since there was no freewheel between the motor and cranks, it was almost impossible to pedal without throttling due to the Resistance of the motor.
Sorry for the long rambling post.. and We are still not up to date yet, but this history lesson will resume in the next post.
 

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So I decided to scrap the idea of doing a mid drive for now, and go for a system that this motor bracket is more made for. I will use two freewheels side by side, the second held to the first with a threaded adapter. I like the idea of having a single speed freewheel connected to the pedals, and a multiple speed freewheel going through the derailleur connected to the motor, so I used 18 t for the freewheel pedals run through, and purchased a 3 speed freewheel (16, 19, 22 T) however there was not quite enough space for the thickness of the two freewheels, they would overhang the axle a little bit. So I used a 16 T single speed freewheel for the motor. With the 9 T sprocket on the motor this is far too much gear reduction to achieve any decent speed. I have gotten it set up on an old rusty bike from the side of the road just for proof of concept and it works very well but the top unassisted speed is less than 20 kph, way too slow, and this motor with its gearbox is extremely loud. So just seems ridiculous. there may have been a point I would have been very happy to have this, but I have been spoiled by fast easy hub motors. One really nice thing is that pedaling with this setup is drag free, noticeably less
than a geared hub motor, and extremely light as well. I tried overvolting to 36 v (I know not great for a brushed motor) this got me an unassisted speed closer to 30 kph. I took that for about a 6 Km ride, about half off-road. By the time I was most of the way back the motor was very hot to the touch so I just pedaled back not wanting to burn out the motor. I am guessing I will have to run it at the rated 24 volts and increase speed by gearing. I have gotten an adapter and 13 tooth sprocket for the motor. I need to cut the adapter in half though because it is too long currently for the sprocket thickness (pics coming) so that should improve speed a lot, although I may need a better controller and batteries to output the amps needed for this gearing increase, and hopefully the motor is actually rated 1000 watt peak and doesn't burn out. I will try to post pictures or videos of this setup.
However today on amazon I found what I think may be a dualie hub and hopefully not just a flip flop hub. Description doesn't really say. But if it's a dualie hub I could run a freewheel on the left side and right side simultaneously, one for pedal input and one for motor input. I think I will have a lot more room for different gears if I am able to use both sides of the wheel. Perhaps 7 speed freewheels on each side, assuming I can get a derailleur to work on the left, if not then I would use the motor on the right side to ensure I can use the derailleur and have access to the gears. Says it should come in tomorrow sometime, so I will know, then all I have to do is take apart and rebuild a wheel 😂
I've done 4 wheels before, front hub motors. I am guessing that with this sort of wheel you would build it almost the same as a front wheel with no dishing. So that may actually make this easier.
That pretty much takes us up to date I think.
TLDR: the bike works, but I want to make it so I can shift gears, and still need to find a bike for this setup to go onto long term
 
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