Cracked Mini-geared hub motor - Cautionary tale

winkinatcha

10 kW
Joined
Apr 8, 2011
Messages
587
Location
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
So... I purchased a huffy Green Machine Drift trike Slider, via Ebay, from a place about 10km from my workshop..

Pic of Slider:
HuffyGreenMachine.gif

Being the twat that I am, and seeing as e-bikes n small EVs is what I am all about (see my sig), I chose to attempt to transport the drift trike from seller's house back to my gaff/workshop on the back of my main ride... the engineer's special... a vintage Chromo racer conversion that is robust as Frock:

View attachment 1

It was prettty dark by the time I set off back home along one of the many uber awesome bike trails with the slider strapped sideways on the rack... Though dark, visibility was still good enough for me to get a bit of speed up...

With my head full of plans on how I was gonna convert the drift trike into an epic electrified death machine... I was cruising along at about 25 km/h when I reached a part of the trail that required a crossing of a major road... and about 100 metres from said crossing were a couple of solid bollards on the trail, I presume to stop cars from taking the bike trail as a short cut.

Kinda misjudged the new width of bike plus slider (strapped sideways across the back rack) and ummm IMPACTED one of the bollards with the rear wheels of the slider...

This causes the drift steering mechanism (two uppright rods, a bit like bulldozer controls) to go to hard lock, meaning one of the rods went straight into the rear wheel, and I came to a bit of a banging stop (still upright tho.. as I have Skillz)

stopped and got off to s what damage I'd done.. noticed a spoke had ripped right out of the hub (but was a bit too dark to see any real damage just amazed that the spoke was attched to the rim at one end and was complete, including rivet en.. It was not Broken!!! meaning... it had ripped out of hub...

Wheel was a bit untrue... but that was no surprise... readjusted slider on rack, loosened rear brake (rim) a bit to enable rear wheel to turn, and resumed ride, albeit a bit slower post bollard kiss.

about 200m later, although motor was still pulling... it began to make a clunkng sound once every rotation.. stopped near a football field with floodlights, so I could get a better look at damage...

Found this:
Cracked Hub.gif

Decided to wheel/walk bike/slider combo back the remaining 7km :D

Don't try this shizzle at home kids... leave it to the professionals like me :shock: :oops:

Joe
 
:shock:

wow.

:shock:

talk about some great exercise though...
 
Bummer, but on the bright side, no collarbones were broken in the incident.

Definitely avoid having stout sticks get in the spokes.
 
dogman said:
Bummer, but on the bright side, no collarbones were broken in the incident.

Definitely avoid having stout sticks get in the spokes.


Or water bottles :wink:
 
A friend and I used to build illegal soap box cars and do races with local chapters of the San Fernando Valley Illegal Soap Box Federation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBboEAnhTI8)

A lot of the guys use 'scrub brakes' for their wheels. We built our soap box cars using bike wheels as opposed to gokart or small lawn tractor wheels and joked about making an emergency brake consisting of a length of broomstick that was shoved into the spokes as a matter of last resort.

I couldn't imagine even that having the destructive power of what you did. Bravo!
 
:D

thanks for the comments guys

:D

yah Dogman, coulda been nastier, but as I'm sure you know, n figuring your 'sperience on two wheels would be equivalent/plus on mine, a locked up back wheel aint much of challenge at 25km/hr .. had it been the front wheel though, I reckon I'd be eating my food through a straw for a couple of weeks :D

Mlt34 ... Illegal Soap Box Races!!! and that vid!!!! Super Awesome and Big Props :D :D..

Joe
 
That hub was hammered! it would take incredible force to rip the hub in half! :D
 
Nice, that ranks as one of my favorite hub failure pics (think NeilP takes the cake with his snappier x5 Axel)

What brand motor in that?
 
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