Freewheel for drive on left hand side?

[NeilP]

A while ago I bolted a little petrol engine on to my dads old bike. great fun, but a bugger to pedal even with the clutch in to allow motor free travel.

Had been looking at these single speed road race/track bikes and the rear hubs with a thread fitted both sides, to allow to different fixed gears or a fixed and a freewheel. Thea got me thinking about getting one and putting a freewheel on the LEFT hand side with the cog modified to accept the bigger chain ring size for the petrol engine.
It then occurred that using a standard freewheel would not work....the pawls and freewheel system would be working in the wrong direction.
Am i making sense?

Is there such a thing as a freewheel that fits on the wrong side?...

Edit..I suppose the thread would need to be the opposite thread too, to stop it getting undone when power applied

Thanks
Neil

 

[Miles]

Yes, you can get LH freewheels with LH threads. You need a bi-drive hub, not a flip-flop hub.

http://www.bikeparts.com/productinfo/ACS-SouthPaw-16t-Left-Hand-Drive-freewheel-18-60381-52095.html

http://www.evdeals.com/USPD%20Drive%20Parts.htm

 

[motomoto]

I bought a 13 tooth and a 14 tooth to transfer power from my drive unit to my crank sprocket.
the thread is left hand 30mm dia x 1mm pitch.

 

[John in CR]

The left hand solutions are expensive and hard to find. Instead I just clean off the RH threads really well and use epoxy so it doesn't unscrew. I've even made dual threaded hubs by taking two hubs and cut them near the middle and weld back together the two pieces with threads. Miles does stuff the right way, and I do stuff the cheap way. The cheap way can be just as durable, but mistakes are more common.

 

[NeilP]

Ok, great advice thanks...stuff off the shelf...that is great

It is for this...

 

[John in CR]

Just use a RH fw mounted in the normal direction. Reverse the engine output and ride it backward. It's a perfect match for a stinkbike, since you're already headed in the wrong direction. I followed one once for about 100m, because I wanted to see how fast he was going. I'll never do that again, because now I understand why they're called stink bikes. Far worse than a car, or even a bus. 8) I just fly by them at about double their speed now.

 

[bobc]

I bought a cheap disc braked hub, turned off the disc brake mount & threaded it left hand thread for a "southpaw" freewheel.
If you've got a lathe, piece of cake - the freewheel was $10 and the hub $20.

Without the lathe I don't know what I'd do (find a mate with one I suppose...) Anything involving a right hand thread on the left of the wheel sounds like an 'incident' waiting to happen...

 

[NeilP]

Hell, now that is a good idea...Have been on a mates lathe all afternoon. Feed screw broken at moment...so no thread cutting ...yet

Never heard the phase 'stink' bike before. I'd love to see your electric bike John...you must get 60 MPH out of it...at least you 'd need to to pass me at twice me speed

I am really happy with it, 2 1/2 litres of petrol does 80 miles or so...and it goes happily at 30mph...wrong bike for 30 though...brakes shocking. Running it at 50:1 mix...and using a chainsaw oil for the mix...low odour...no stink...at least no worse than any other 50cc moped.

Never seen those motors until I started looking in to electric bikes. did an e-bay search for bicycle motor...looking for electric motors. Paid £100...all in the box and fitted it to my dads old bike.

 

[John in CR]

While mine will do 60mph, the little gasser bikes around here do more like 20. They need the low gearing due to the mountains. I typically cruise at 35-40mph and average just over 30wh/km. Based on the price of electricity and gasoline here I get over 250km for what a liter of gas costs or about 600mpg. The operating costs of yours and mine are so low that the difference is of little concern unless we compare them to cars. The big differences are silent running and zero maintenance. I've done between 7500 and 10k miles in 26 months, and my only maintenance has been brakes. Now that regen braking provides most of my braking force fiddling with brakes is almost nil. When I pull in to the carport I connect the charging plug and push the ON button for the charger. It cuts off automatically, and my bike is always ready, just turn it on and go. If I think I might exceed my 40 mile range (further if I slow down), I either strap on some extra batteries or throw my chargers in my backpack, but that's very rare.

I'd have to say that riding in silence with no effort is the biggest advantage, and it really has to be experienced to be appreciated. I'm not much on maintenance, so if I had a gasser, it would probably get parked after breaking down in the first few months. My ebike started as an experiment to see how this motor worked out, and it forever changed our family's primary transportation.

John

 

[NeilP]

well I'll know at some point. as soon as I can get all the bits together for my electric bike. The petrol one is soo much cheaper. Even new the petrol kit is about £300 NEW. Have spent £1400 so far on this electric one and still need to buy wire, connectors, switches, buy and build battery boxes, cable tidies, and put the thing together. Now I have spent so much I can't go back..but if I knew what I knew now, I would not have bothered with the electric one. I can put up with a bit of maintenance and save £1200 or more...and quicker and easier to put together.
You could say that I bought a kit with the petrol kit...true...but even years ago as a kid with no money to spend I built a petrol bike with an old chainsaw motor and bits I had lying around.


Oh..just looked down and saw a pile of dismantled PC PSU's ...reminds me I forgot to add the cost of the Chargers and Meanwell supplies...and not counting the bits I found at the dump, to the electric bike cost. The electric bike was the catalyst, but if it was done from a purely practical stand point...petrol is the way to go....
In the 'new things to try department' I'd still try the electric bike..but cost wise no

 

[John in CR]

I got 5 motors with controllers, DC/DC converters, and connection blocks including shipping from China for less than you have in your ebike so far. Add a moto tire, throttle, and batteries for a 50mph+ bike. I run a different controller now for better acceleration, and 70mph as soon as I add some more voltage, so I am into it for more $ now. I've DIY'd my batt packs, so they cost about $.50/wh. I'm just waiting for a big shipment of batteries to build out bikes to put all of my motors in service. Ebikes can be cheap, so don't let the guys forking out the big bucks mislead you. You could get a used alternator from a junkyard, and with minor changes turn it into an ebike motor run with a cheap controller with lead batteries for the first year to do a build cheaper than the kit motor. There's all kinds of stuff that can be re-purposed to run an ebike, though then you end up with chain line or belt maintenance and headaches similar to the gasser issues.

If the noise of a gasser was acceptable to me, I'd just get a motorcycle. It's not, so I won't. In the meantime, just my own time saved over the slow speed stuff is worth more to me over 2 years than my batt costs. I like looking at the $2k I've saved on gas for the car in the past 2 years as my measuring stick of justification.

To me the cool thing to do with that motor would be to turn it into a mini generator, though I'd start with a smaller weed eater motor + an RC motor as my gen head for a tiny portable generator to charge batteries or whatever.

 

[NeilP]

I ride a Harley...with loud pipes...so the little petrol bike is real quiet.

Only built the petrol one because I saw it on e-bay...there were no bidders, so I stuck a bid in at the last minute...A great opportunity to have a powered bike quickly and cheaply. I knew getting all the parts together was not going to be quick. Trouble is that everytime I realise that another part is needed...it usually takes at least another two weeks to get the bits. Evenn stuff thta should be next day delivery is getting delayed.
I ordered 120kOhm reisistors on 1st Feb for the balance boards....still not arrived...two phone calls, 3 e-mails and they do not even reply Initially unable to find a motor, and then someone from USA prepared to send to Jersey,,...wheel rims....spokes...nipples...all delays ...this e-bike project has become a nightmare. The petrol bike was a bit of fun for a few weeks to make people laugh...the f***ing electric bike is taking so long to get the bits the petrol one has become main transport..even ousting my normal MTB...except when I go in to town of course

 

[NeilP]

I b threaded it left hand thread for a "southpaw" freewheel.

Bob, what is the thread spec for the southpaw freewheels? I have read that there are a few different thread types on hubs. What does the Southpaw LH Freewheel have. ?

 

[Miles]

1.37" x 24tpi LH thread

 

[NeilP]

Thanks..sorry to be a pain..I am sure I could find it somewhere but what is type of thread? a name? so i can find the thread angle...or...what is the thread angle

Or since the thread is so small is that fairly irrelevant...I cant find any info on it Checked Sheldon Brown site and others.

Soft metal if it is an alloy hub so probably relatively immaterial..and probably wont be able to cut to that degree of accuracy, but better to try :0

 

[Miles]

Thanks..sorry to be a pain..I am sure I could find it somewhere but what is type of thread? a name? so i can find the thread angle...or...what is the thread angle

60 degree thread angle.

Ref: http://www.motalia.com/Html/Charts/cycle_chart.html

 

[bobc]

Hi Neil,
I turn it down to 35mm & start thread cutting from there. On the deore hubs I turn it back exactly 10mm from the disc mounting face - leaves enough room for spokes and freewheel and chain stays etc.
UK supplier of bike parts is:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=3308
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=3310
and a nice LH freewheel
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=54098
I just grip the flange in the 3jaw & take light cuts ;^) Use the tailstock pointy thing in the QR skewer hole as a steady.
I've done 3 or 4 now & it's become an easy job! The very outside bit of the threaded part can seem a bit dodgy because of an undercut in the hub, but this is less than a millimeter. The metal of the hub, as you'd expect is nice, good quality, free turning ally.

 

[John in CR]

Nice prices for UK...except for the Shimano FW though. What's the deal there I wonder. I'm lucky here that bike parts are dirt cheap. I have something like 9 LBS's within a 3 mile radius of my house. They just don't have the oddball stuff like double threaded hubs and LH FWs and such.

 

[NeilP]

Thanks for the UK links....loading now...but slow connection here at night.

Nice chart that..i had seen others, but none as comprehensive , cheers

 

[NeilP]

ALL STOP>>>>REALITY CHECK....


This wont work....what was I thinking....of I fit a freewheel hub on the LHS...then I won't be able to start the motor...it is started by the back wheel turning the engine over when the clutch is released!! !doh....

just occurred to me last night

 

[Thud]

Green light!

2 words....pull start.
http://cgi.ebay.com/bicycle-Motorized-BIKE-ENGINE-parts-pull-start-/170559408257?pt=Cycling_Parts_Accessories&hash=item27b6220881

I really perfer to have a freewheel in the rear end of every thing.....you can do some increadble Hypermilling with hard tires & coasting on every oportunity.....not that I ever coast LOL.

 

[NeilP]

Ummmyes....but not for me I think...I should not really be riding this on the road over here anyway...so I kill the motor frequently....if people are approaching from other direction, traffic lights...etc...

I would imagine that using the pull start can't really be used while riding that easily? or can it?

 

[Thud]

If you can reach the cord while pedaling,I don't see why not.
depends on the mounting & ease of reach. The motor is an easy start. (i have one also )

 

[Hummina Shadeeba]

http://tncscooters.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=391

https://www.profileracing.com/product/freewheel-hub-drive-bi-hub/

@thud didn’t u do a huge gearing mid drive? I want to do a jackshaft w belts and tensioners.