The summer has all but gone, and I’m still not nearly done with the electric conversion. The house on the other hand is a lot closer to finished and when that’s done there’ll be much more time for hobby projects like this. 🙂

The QS180 motor is a heavy beast and to be able to mock the location for the motor in the frame I 3D-printed a shell with the same dimesions as the motor.

This makes moving the mount around to find the perfect alignment much easier than using the proper motor.

Before starting the building of the bike I had to do some maintenance to the frame though.

The swingarm bearings were long past their due date and consisted more of a rusty goo than actual rollers. The bushings did not rotate in the bearings, so these had to be replaced.
The bearings in the dogbone were in better shape and after a good rinse and lube were working alright.

After replacing and restoring the bearings I could mount the swingarm on the frame to check for motor alignment..

To get the swingarm to sit right I needed the shock absorber and it was fitted with a spring I didn’t like, so the next project was replacing the spring on the shock.

I made tools for this a long time ago and even if they’re a bit bendy they still work just fine. Taking the shock apart, cleaning it up and putting it together took no time at all.

.. and then the shock absorber got back in the frame ..

Since I want to do as few modifications to the original frame as possible I started designing a motor mount that’d mount to the same points as the 250cc motor, ie four bolt holes in the front and the swing axle in the back.

I’ve got some old forks for a tractor that I don’t have, and those are made from 6mm steel tube. Perfect material for a motor mount I thought, and the plasma cut the forks like butter.

Making some wierd shaped parts to mount the motor to the frame.

.. and some regular shaped parts to weld to some other parts..

Using 20x2mm square tube I made a mount mockup like this..

The regular shaped parts were made holy and bolted to the motor..

.. and then used to bolt the motor to the mount ..

With the mount bolted to the frame I could then mount the motor to design the forward attachment points and make a corresponding bracket..

.. and this is what it looks like with the motor mounted to all the attachment points..

Unfortunately the motor is quite wide and the chain runs inside the frame, so in order to not have a two stage transmission with an intermediate shaft I had to position the motor quite far to the right side..

This picture is taken a little bit from the side, so it looks worse than it is.. but yes, it’s noticably heavy to the right side. We’ll see if that’s a problem when riding, if so I’ll have to remedy it somehow.

That’s all I have done so far, next step is to fit the controller in the subframe. Unfortunately the controller is quite a big and heavy piece of equipment and .. well.. it didn’t fit. I’m currently in the process of replacing the steering bearings and putting the front end together. After that I’ll mount the wheels to check what clearance I have to play with and I’ll modify the sub frame to fit the controller after that. Just have to make sure it won’t hit the rear wheel when the suspension bottoms out..

I’ve been thinking of making a youtube video of this build, but with the little time I have for the project it just adds to much work to it all. Please leave a comment if you think I should make a video anyways. I still haven’t gotten around to editing and publishing the previous build I filmed so.. 🙂

And here’s a little video for you to enjoy of my CNC plasma cutting a cover for our chimney.

To be continued..

Now that the motor for the NoGas project has been liberated from the previous conversion the fun is about to begin. But before I can start constructing and building I’ll have to remove everything gas-related from the bike..

Since I’ve never owned a GasGas before it took a bit of fiddling to get everything off the bike. First to go was the seat and tank..

Then goes the plastic parts..

.. to get further the subframe is next on the removal list ..

To make the electric motor mount as similar to the original sprocket position I took a picture to try to reference the placement when that’s up. Since the shaft on the electric motor is in the center of the motor I won’t get the sprocket as close to the swing arm without using a transfer shaft, which I don’t want to do.. so..

There’s quite a lot of stuff on a bike like this..

.. and I’m just getting started!

To get to the engine I removed the rear swing and shock absorber..

.. and once that was done there were only two more bolts holding the engine in place..

I could’ve stopped here and started making a mount for the QS motor but since the paint on the frame was in quite a bad state and the steering bearings didn’t feel too good I decided to do a proper restoration of the bike while I’m converting it.. so, off with the rest of the stuff..

Now that the frame is naked I sand blasted all the rusty areas and removed all the loose paint. Here I’ve just primed it for paint and this is the state it’ll be in until I’ve got all the welding and modifying done. Then I’ll do a proper paintjob to get it all protected from rust and whatnot..

Since a lot of the stuff I removed was in a pretty bad condition I’m getting a lot of new stuff to go on the bike, like footpegs, levers, bearings and stuff like that. More on that when I get to it. The next step is making a mockup motor since the QS is just too heavy to play around with. Then the manufacturing of mounts will begin. I’m going to try to modify the frame as little as possible but I’m counting on having to make some welding and modifying of the frame to fit the QS.

There’s quite a lot of cleaning still to do, teadious boring work that I won’t write about so next post will be making electrical stuff fit.

To be continued..

So, since the petrol engine is running lean and I’d rather make the bike electric than spend time calibrating carburetor, I’ll start the project now – a few months earlier than planned.

This is the victim. A 2012 GasGas ec250f with a 290cc kit installed. I bought it just to do the conversion but had planned on running it as a gas-bike this summer as there are a lot of other projects I have to do… but, well.. I can’t say I’m sad to have to push this project up the priority list. 🙂

I’m going to run a QS180 90h motor paired with an APT96800 controller running at 72v. The reason for chosing 72v instead of 96v is that I’ve got quite a few 72v packs already and got the chargers and BMS:es I need to make this work. There’s nothing preventing me from upgrading to 96v in the future if it turns out it’s too dull at 72v.
I’ve got a pair of 30Ah batteries that are good for around 300A a piece that I’m going to run in this bike for now. Connected in series they should give quite a lot of *umph*, and last – well, hopefully for a bit of fun at least.

The first hurdle in this project is that the QS motor is here at the moment:

Buried under a lot of stuff in the Avant tractor I converted a few years back. The thing is, I need the Avant to keep running for other projects, so I’ll need to kick off replacing the QS with a LightningRods XXL motor I bought a while back for this purpose.

I got a “special edition” XXL motor with fan cooling that’ll be perfect for the application as it’ll sit stationary under the seat on the Avant. First sub-project will be making the belt wheel fit the axle and keyway of the XXL.

To do this I need the manual mill to be running, and I fried the motor on that one a while back milling unsuitable materials.. In the last post I repaired it with an 800w motor, all that was left to do now was to set it up properly. After a bit of fiddling I got it square enough and set the wheel up in the mill chuck I got just for this purpose, but when doing the first conversion.

Since I don’t have a DRO on the mill (I’ll have to get one later) I’m using a live center to center the part on the mill. I locked down the table to prevent it from moving and bolted down the chuck while keeping it centered with the quill.

Then all I had to do was drill the hole to just under size and ream the hole to size. 12mm hole for 12mm shaft. Perfect!

All that was left to do now was the keyway and I’ve got the tools for that.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the sleeve for 12mm holes, and I wanted to make the keyway now… so, sub-subproject: Making the sleeve.

Just had to find a 12mm axle and a tube with 12mm ID. Welded them together and set it up on the mill to make the proper slot.

I don’t know if the reamers are ment for 12mm holes, but there’s not a lot of material left after milling the slot in the sleeve. It’s quite hard to hold on to while taking the last few passes, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.. Good enough is .. good enough.

Having made the keyway and made sure the wheel fit on the XXL motor it was time to disect the Avant.

I’ve got to service this machine, it’s been running for years without doing anything to it, and it’s leaking hydraulic fluid from the filter.. That’ll be a later post.

After disconnecting all the wires, removing the battery packs and the controller I could finally get to the motor. Seems I did quite a proper job converting this machine as it’s really servicable. I am however going to try to fit three battery packs instead of the current two when I put it all together to get it running a bit longer. I’ve got two spare packs sitting on a shelf doing nothing constructive at all, better to put one to use.

Having removed the QS motor from the Avant I just had to make a size comparison. 🙂

The smallest one here is the Lightning Rods XL motor. It’s a bit more powerful than the BigBlock I’m using on the runbikes, and those do over 110km/h and are insanely powerful.. super fun toys! The XL is supposed to push about 50% more power than the BigBlock..

The center motor is the XXL that’s going into the Avant. I don’t have the proper numbers for it but it’s a larger diameter motor and quite a lot larger overall. That should give quite a lot more torque and it can push quite a lot of power. The Avant averages about 5kW, so this should be plenty.

To the right is the QS180. It’s a proper beast! I’m super stoked to see what that motor can do on a bike!

After having measured the offset of the belt wheel on the axle I set it up on the mill again to bore the hole larger to fit the retaining clip on the motor axle at the right height.

Time for a quick test fit and then CAD to make a conversion plate between the welded QS-motor bolt pattern and the XXL.

The first mockup is on the 3D-printer right now. After test fitting to see how it fits I’ll mill it from aluminium..

To be continued..