Qulbix Raptor ebike + frame kit

[Holbrook]

Please let me know the correct orantation of the swingarm bushings, spacers and bearings. Our first order of bikes came unassebled without the bearings and spacers pressed in the rear swingarms since we want to powercoat these bikes to customer's desire.


Ziva's on vacation until August 25th and don't want to wait until then for an answer!

 

[ecruz]

Holbrook, the bearing go in first from the outside of the swing arm then the aluminum caps then the washer with bolt. Hope that helps.

 

[ecruz]

OffRoader get your self a Plastic sheet or carbon fiber panel on Ebay, Remove the staples and redo the upholstery should be a cheap cover or bite the bullet and order another seat from Quilbix. If you do it yourself you can make is flush so when you flip it wont hit the floor.

 

[Hyena]

I dont think you can really blame qulbix for that one offroader. If you're constantly flipping it and pushing the seat into the ground it's going to cause excessive wear and tear on an area that's not designed for it. I've actually carpeted a section of my workshop where I work on my bikes now largely for this reason.

 

[Offroader]

I dont think you can really blame qulbix for that one offroader. If you're constantly flipping it and pushing the seat into the ground it's going to cause excessive wear and tear on an area that's not designed for it. I've actually carpeted a section of my workshop where I work on my bikes now largely for this reason.

Hyena, the problem is that the plastic piece extends past the metal frame in the rear. When flipping the bike around this plastic contacts the ground first. The metal should be the part to contact the ground first. This plastic piece will cut through the seat and if you let it down with too much force the plastic will crack. Actually, even turning the bike around slowly this plastic piece will take the full weight of the bike.

It's really a simple fix, just cut down the plastic piece so that it is in more.

Qulbix I believe would like to hear of potential problems so they can fix them. Maybe my seat was just somehow cut incorrectly, I'll have to ask snellemin how his seat is.

Yes, if I never turned the bike on its seat than this would probably not have broken, but I think we all do this to work on the bikes.

 

[Samd]

Friends- in these Quilbix instructions it says the bearings and spacers are already installed but because our order came without power coat the bearings and spacers are not installed. Can any of you please provide better easy to understand instructions on how to get the bearings and spacers in the Swingarm and the correct order they go in? Do I need a press to push the spacers in the holes? Please provide as many pictures and description as possible.

Please see the attached picture. Is this correct?

Holbrook, if the bearings are a press fit - toss them in your freezer before dropping them into the holes.

 

[Rix]

Friends- in these Quilbix instructions it says the bearings and spacers are already installed but because our order came without power coat the bearings and spacers are not installed. Can any of you please provide better easy to understand instructions on how to get the bearings and spacers in the Swingarm and the correct order they go in? Do I need a press to push the spacers in the holes? Please provide as many pictures and description as possible.

Please see the attached picture. Is this correct?

Holbrook, if the bearings are a press fit - toss them in your freezer before dropping them into the holes.

That and use a heat gun to gently warm the area around the swingarm pivot holes. Those bearings will practically fall in.

 

[Rix]

Looks like there will be another option for hubmotors coming out from Crystalyte. The TC40xx series seems the most promising for power, speed, and lightish weight when compared to the Cromo and 54xx. The difference is the flange will use standard spokes, which as we all know, can be laced to MC rims. Cross posted on other threads.

Rick

 

[Holbrook]

Friends- in these Quilbix instructions it says the bearings and spacers are already installed but because our order came without power coat the bearings and spacers are not installed. Can any of you please provide better easy to understand instructions on how to get the bearings and spacers in the Swingarm and the correct order they go in? Do I need a press to push the spacers in the holes? Please provide as many pictures and description as possible.

Please see the attached picture. Is this correct?

Holbrook, if the bearings are a press fit - toss them in your freezer before dropping them into the holes.

Thank you for the tips on shrinking and expanding. By looking at the picture do you know if the orientation of the spacers/shims are correct?

 

[Offroader]

Holbrook, I never had mine apart but I am 95% sure without removing the screw it is the bearing, all the other parts are behind the bearing.

 

[Merlin]

a little crossposting

@ Offroader....i saw alot of pics of your raptor..it looks good used.
did you ever crashed? did you had any Problems with a bended/broken crankarm?


I Present:

- A 40A Flux Weakining Run at 84v Fully Charged Lipopack with slight headwinds and 1% pitch of road.
- Only 3,0 (Voltage)Sag at 8,5KW with hand selected Lipos
- How fast a Cromotor heats up on a 3-4Km Run with 8,5KW (outside temp 27°) Started with Cold Motor.
- How great 4KW Regenerative Braking works to complete Stop.
- High Resonance Squeeking at 65-70kph.
- How to kill another Crank arm on a slow speed Crash on gras.........................

..have fun

[youtube]0141WK6dsnQ[/youtube]

 

[Offroader]

Just got my 9/10 gauge spokes with brass nipples. Compared to the 12 gauge these things are massive, which is what I want because I had no problem cracking the elbows off of the 11/12 gauge.

I had enough of spokes breaking, and it already ruined two of my prowheel rims because of it. Once you pop 5 or more spokes at one time you will bend the rim and it will never be true again.

I am very happy with the quality and the brass nipples fit the prowheel rim perfectly. The one issue that concerns me is I will have to enlarge the holes on my cromotor about .4 mm.

This is a small amount, but the cromotor holes already look pretty close to the edge. I am kind of worried that instead of the spokes breaking the flange will break by the spokes pulling through. I just don't know if this could happen. I ran my finger over the edge of the flange on my old cromotor and I could feel the steal starting to actually push out a little over some holes.


I wonder if I could weld them stronger? I know I can redrill holes but how do I chamfer the holes on the inside of the hub?

The spokes are 9/10 gauge and the 10 gauge part just about fits through the cromotor hole. If I had to do it again I would order 10 gauge straight spokes, and only because I worry about enlarging the hole any on the cromotor. Although the 9 gauge is such a tiny amount bigger than the 10 gauge, I am kind of happy to have the elbows as strong as I can get them.

I am so happy to have these larger gauge spokes, breaking spokes has been a nightmare for me. I have already broken 5 or more spokes about six times since I got my raptor 1000 miles ago.

While 12 gauge spokes will work, and I've been riding with 12 gauge spokes recently, they will catastrophically fail if you get a reasonably hard hit, like I did landing in a hole in a park when I was trying to be careful. Broke 14 spokes with that hit and warped my new $100 dollar rim. 11/12 gauge spokes are also not strong enough, the 11 gauge elbows will crack with the right hits, however 11/12 gauge spokes I only break about 5 or 6 at a time and not 14. Almost always the hits that crack spokes will be hitting a sharp corner like a curb, stair, or a sharp edge coming up to a paved foot path. You can do 6 foot jumps and that won't break the spokes, go figure.

The other issues I had with the 12 gauge spokes is that sometimes the spoke will pull through the nipple. Depending on the spoke manufacture either the nipple threads was ruined or the spoke threads. These 10 gauge threads are more coarse threaded. I hope these threads are a lot stronger also.

If I happen to crack the elbows off of these 9/10 gauge spokes than I honestly have to give up. These elbows look massive. My recommendation is forget 12 gauge or 11/12 gauge, and order straight 10 gauge with brass nipples that won't rust. They should just fit in the cromotor holes with a little filing.

12 gauge spoke next to 9/10 gauge spoke. The longer nipple are the 10 gauge brass nipples. Smaller nipple is steal.

 

[marcn]

Great video Merlin!

99km/h wow! The temps dropped a few degrees when you slowed down to 30km/h quicker then I thought. Good quick braking when that car pulled out as well!

That slow speed crash looked like a traction issue. Was it?

 

[Offroader]

@ Offroader....i saw alot of pics of your raptor..it looks good used.
did you ever crashed? did you had any Problems with a bended/broken crankarm?

That fall sucked. Were you turning?

This is why I would never use bicycle tires off-road like that. I had some high speed falls with my cross country ebike with bicycle tires off-roading, but those were more dual purpose Maxxis holly roller tires.

If you can get away with it get the shinko 241 3" tires, either in 17" or 18" and you would never slip out like that unless you hit sand or wet leaves and then you still probably won't slip. I do crazy stuff with my bike and traction is almost never an issue.

I've dropped my raptor a bunch of times, luckily I was always going slow so only did minor damage. I scratched my fork and my rear swingarm. I control drop the bike a lot on hard off-road trails, like when doing some hard climbing, but It has been controlled. Never bent my crank arms.

 

[Mammalian04]

Hey guys, what do you think about riding the bike without power. I don’t think I will have my bike ready for an upcoming hiking/biking trip so I was going to buy a cheap bike to pedal around on with the family. Then I got to thinking…. Why not just use the Raptor without power like Marcn did for testing his suspension (let’s not start that debate again).

Here are couple of challenges that I can think of:
MOTOR HAS DRAG SO I WILL NEED TO USE A REGULAR REAR HUB
I can use a regular bicycle hub with 5 speed cassette (I know only 4 can be used). I need to build a rear wheel like this anyway (prowheel and bicycle rear hub) so I try out out my mid-drive big block kit when LightningRods finishes mine (probably at least another month or 2). I am still trying to figure out how to make a 150mm rear hub work with a 165mm dropout.

NEED DERAILLEUR
I will need to purchase and install a derailleur for the 5 speed cassette

WHEELS WILL BE VERY HEAVY
Using the Prowheel 19x1.4 with Shinko SR241 on front and back. That will be very heavy. I might consider a smoother tire for decreased weight and rolling resistance (I am sure Rix has the answer for this since he has tried 1,587 different tires). I can then use those tires as my pavement tires later. Since I will be pedaling and going quite slow, I don’t think traction will be an issue (I am a super novice MTB rider anyway).

What do you guys think about these challenges and is there anything I am not thinking of?

Marcn, was the bike too heavy to ride like a normal bicycle? (Though, I know you had your motor installed, which I don’t plan to have on the bike)

 

[Merlin]

Great video Merlin!

99km/h wow! The temps dropped a few degrees when you slowed down to 30km/h quicker then I thought. Good quick braking when that car pulled out as well!

That slow speed crash looked like a traction issue. Was it?

yep on a "fast sprint" the temp slowed down quick...but look at the end of the video (128°)
and yes traction lost.....so quick... without that video i couldnt tell what went wrong....now iam searching for cheap crank arms of steel (not aluminium anymore)
because "4 square" (<-- hope thats right name for the schlumpf crank) you didnt find "high qualty" ones....so i will try steel or i will buy a bunch of alu-crankarms as a "standard" replacement.

 

[Merlin]

That fall sucked. Were you turning?

This is why I would never use bicycle tires off-road like that. I had some high speed falls with my cross country ebike with bicycle tires off-roading, but those were more dual purpose Maxxis holly roller tires.

If you can get away with it get the shinko 241 3" tires, either in 17" or 18" and you would never slip out like that unless you hit sand or wet leaves and then you still probably won't slip. I do crazy stuff with my bike and traction is almost never an issue.

I've dropped my raptor a bunch of times, luckily I was always going slow so only did minor damage. I scratched my fork and my rear swingarm. I control drop the bike a lot on hard off-road trails, like when doing some hard climbing, but It has been controlled. Never bent my crank arms.

on the crash i wasnt turning.
i would go with a 19" mx wheel and a shinko 241....but i dont know who can lace me up a wheel here ....when i do it by myself i need one who can true the wheel.

 

[Merlin]

Hey guys, what do you think about riding the bike without power. I don’t think I will have my bike ready for an upcoming hiking/biking trip so I was going to buy a cheap bike to pedal around on with the family. Then I got to thinking…. Why not just use the Raptor without power like Marcn did for testing his suspension (let’s not start that debate again).

mhh...why did you want to go without power/motor?
is it because the others dont want?

did you watch my "PAS" Video? Set up a pas to 100/150w only and you can drive your 50kg Monster like a "normal" Bike.

 

[Mammalian04]

Hey guys, what do you think about riding the bike without power. I don’t think I will have my bike ready for an upcoming hiking/biking trip so I was going to buy a cheap bike to pedal around on with the family. Then I got to thinking…. Why not just use the Raptor without power like Marcn did for testing his suspension (let’s not start that debate again).

mhh...why did you want to go without power/motor?
is it because the others dont want?

did you watch my "PAS" Video? Set up a pas to 100/150w only and you can drive your 50kg Monster like a "normal" Bike.

It is not that I don’t “want” to ride the bike without power. I just don’t think I will have time to put everything together (mainly the battery). However, I do have some used LIPO batteries from a 1/5 scale RC I bought. I haven’t used them yet.

- (2) PROTEK 4S 6700MAH 100C DISCHARGE LIPO
- KERSHAW DESIGNS 6S 8000MAH 70C DISCHARGE LIPO
- KERSHAW DESIGNS 4S 8000MAH 70C DISCHARGE LIPO
- KERSHAW DESIGNS 5S 8000MAH 70C DISCHARGE LIPO – Battery was 6s but seller damaged 1 cell and had to remove it.

I don’t know where what condition they are in. I will charge them up this weekend and find out if they still seem good. I bought them used with the RC truck but here are where they come from.
http://kershawdesigns.com/Batteries-LiPo.htm

I guess I could wire up the first 2 batteries for wife’s Raptor (8s 6.7ah) and the last 3 batteries for the my Raptor (15s 8ah). Is 8s too little power for the Cromotor? I will be using the Adaptto MaxE for both bikes.

 

[marcn]

Marcn, was the bike too heavy to ride like a normal bicycle? (Though, I know you had your motor installed, which I don’t plan to have on the bike)

For us, it was only downhill. I would not want to ride it with no power anywhere, even if it was flat. The frame is just too heavy bundled with the wheels. Even if you went with bicycle rims and a smaller hub, that's still about 20kg.

 

[Mammalian04]

Marcn, was the bike too heavy to ride like a normal bicycle? (Though, I know you had your motor installed, which I don’t plan to have on the bike)

For us, it was only downhill. I would not want to ride it with no power anywhere, even if it was flat. The frame is just too heavy bundled with the wheels. Even if you went with bicycle rims and a smaller hub, that's still about 20kg.

Agh... ok, maybe not a great idea. Maybe the LIPO batteries I have will work...

 

[ecruz]

Nice video, I cannot believe you bent a crank arm with that fall it was on dirt rd. So you are telling me you bent the Schlumpf crank from that? OUCH!!! $800 crank OMG.

The sound of your bike is different deeper or is it just the camera.

 

[Mammalian04]

......I am very happy with the quality and the brass nipples fit the prowheel rim perfectly. The one issue that concerns me is I will have to enlarge the holes on my cromotor about .4 mm.

This is a small amount, but the cromotor holes already look pretty close to the edge. I am kind of worried that instead of the spokes breaking the flange will break by the spokes pulling through. I just don't know if this could happen. I ran my finger over the edge of the flange on my old cromotor and I could feel the steal starting to actually push out a little over some holes.


I wonder if I could weld them stronger? I know I can redrill holes but how do I chamfer the holes on the inside of the hub?

The spokes are 9/10 gauge and the 10 gauge part just about fits through the cromotor hole. If I had to do it again I would order 10 gauge straight spokes, and only because I worry about enlarging the hole any on the cromotor. Although the 9 gauge is such a tiny amount bigger than the 10 gauge, I am kind of happy to have the elbows as strong as I can get them. ....

Hey Offroader, I really hope this works for you too! Are these the Buchanan spokes?

I had a thought a few weeks back when you and Rix were talking about your cracked rim and tire PSI. Do you think that running lower pressure contributed to the hard hits? (Think about when a bicycle tire is almost flat but on a bigger scale)
With low PSI, the impact might be more centralized at one area of the rim instead, and possibly even letting the curb impact the rim with the rubber in between. I could see this causing the rim to flex greatly and thus break the spokes. Not that you would want to sacrafice another wheel but maybe try running higher pressures and see if the 12g spokes will hold out?

Regarding drilling the Cromotor, that was the final answer I got from JRH about the 8g/9g spokes. Maybe you could secure the wheel near a drill press and drill out (ever so slowly so you don't snap the bit) to the inside of the hub. That would be a huge pain in the *ss though....

 

[marcn]

So you are telling me you bent the Schlumpf crank from that? OUCH!!! $800 crank OMG

My thoughts as well! I thought the Schlumpf cranks had to be Schlumpf cranks and couldn't be swapped with anything else since they have that gear changing button on the crank socket?

 

[Merlin]

its the second crank arm i have bent.

the schlumpf drive has a normal 4 square bottombracket. You can exchange it. but on the right side you have to look that your arm doesnt touch the "schlumpf" because on 1:2,5 Ratio the Drive spins faster as you pedal. The Original ones where a bit "milled" on the right side (dont know the right word for it i think)

the second arm was a 10$ cheap one. so its the same "quality" :lol:
(Original ones come 35$ EACH SIDE!)

now i try a pair of this one:

when they fail, the last try goes to a truvativ arm: