Issues with Spooky Tooth's HD Wheel.

hms-one

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Reposted from the Intro forum:

I have built 2 Motored bikes before, my latest is a slant head 66cc grubee skyhawk($160)on a single speed Schwinn and costing about $6oo all told. A big chunk of that cost was $110 dollars for Spooky Tooth's HD wheel. Since reviews for this thing seem few and far between I figured my info would be useful.

The HD wheel seems nice and sturdy, and I like that the Hub kit doesn't mount the sprocket through the spokes. I had it on my bike for a couple of days w/o the engine on and it sure seems beefy. However, upon installing the kit and having the drive sprocket linked to the engine i found problems.

The clutch on my engine was on a little tight and didn't seem to disengage no matter how tight I adjusted it w/ the cable, so I Loosened the star nut on it and fixed my issue. But while I was trying to get my alignment right I noticed that the drive sprocket was threading off the hub allowing the wheel to turn and the bike to move with the clutch engaged. I rolled the bike backward and It seemed to snug right up.

Once I had the clutch disengaging like it should I went out for a quick start-up run, after afew tries and a few adjustments, I was turning the engine over, but I never really got the thing started. After throwing the cluch 3-4 times I noticed that I was free wheeling and that the clutch had no effect. I looked closely at my HD wheel and tried to hold the sprocket while spinning the rest of the wheel to tighten it up, since the sprocket mount seemed to have come loose on it's threads again. The sprocket was spinning free, and would not thread onto the hub.

I removed the wheel from the bike and after removing the brake I can see the problem more clearly. I am slipping the sprocket and bracket in and out over the threads with little resistance, and can spin it freely w/o grabbing any threads. I got stuck in getting the inner 'drum' portion of the strap brake off the axle, the thing is really snug.

Roland @ Spooky Tooth agreed to replace/fix this once i get the drum off and get a closer look @ the threads. So far, despite my initial satisfaction with it's beefyness, my overall HD Wheel experience has been rather dissapointing, especially considering the cost.

Update: attatched pics of hub and sprocket bracket mailed to spooky after I removed the brake drum
 

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Update

After some correspondence with spooky, and mailing the wheel and sprocket back to them, they resolved my problem by sending me a whole new HD Wheel. They were very professional and helpful.

I will update this thread again with a product review once I have resolved my other engine issues and put some miles on this new wheel, just in case anyone cares.
 
I care! Hope it goes well. It looks like the axle has threads for a freewheel and threads for a lockring/locknut. Why doesn't this kit use a locking device? Strange.

Good to know Spooky is living up to their rep of good service though.

Maybe the smaller threaded portion is for the band-brake?

Have you tried any loc-tite thread locking products?

On the next wheel you get, perhaps you should use a chain whip to tighten the cog down before mounting the wheel on bike (for the fat motor cogs, you will have to either put wider chain on your factory made chain whip, or make one from a piece of flat bar, or even screw a piece of chain to a 2x4. )

Prime the engine and use a spritz of rubbign alcohol or shot of start fluid, so the bike starts easy on first run. The torque of the motor should tighten that sucker down hard and should not be any more problem.
 
The smaller threaded portion of the axle is for the drum of the hand brake. There is still a little room on the back threads after the mount screws on tho. Maybe enuf room for a locknut.

I had to ship my broken wheel back to spooky at my cost, which I wasn't happy about, but that's a minor complaint, really.

I had thought about some loctite and securing the sprocket really well, but using a locknut or set screw seems alot more permanent. good Idea about the chain wrench. The wheel I've got now is still fine. I just have to find a way to fix this problem so the hub doesn't get stripped out like the last one.
 
review as promised: GLARING design flaw..

I have fixed the problems that I had with the HD Wheel by scavenging a lock ring from a second wheel, and threading it onto the inner threaded portion of the hub after the sprocket mount and behind the drum of the strap brake. I have gone 30 miles and it is looking good so far. There was easily enough threads left for the locknut, and spooky clearly has them on hand because I scavenged this one from a 4-stroke HD wheel. Given these facts I can't see why the fixed sprocket HD wheel comes without a locking device.

A coasting sprocket mount for a pull start engine only ever gets tightened on because of the counter clockwise threads. But on a pedal start, a fixed sprocket setup encounters an unthreading force when starting the engine. The wheel has forward momentum, and the sprocket encounters resistance in turning the engine over. With no locking device, and a new engine, the force required to turn the engine over was more than that required to unthread the sprocket mount. Simple.

A jam-nut, a set screw.. even some loctite would probably be enough to hold up to forces that are only encountered when pedal starting the engine. Both of the fixed sprocket HD Wheels I got from Spooky were built without ANY locking device on the sprocket mount.

This is a relatively new product that only Spooky is building and selling. I suppose early adopters always have to deal with these kind of bugs. If you plan to buy a fixed sprocket HD Wheel, or build a wheel with an HD Hub Kit make sure to lock the sprocket mount to the hub somehow. I'm sure spooky will build you one with a lockring/locknut if you ask them nicely.

I'll update again about durability when I have put a few hundred more miles on the wheel.

Peace.
 
hd wheel

The HD wheel is built in china. Its from grubee. Bicycle engines .com sells the exact same wheel. What they do not tell you is the wheel [pedal start version] drive sprocket either has to be locked in with the drum brake assy or the optional lock ring is used if no drum brake is used. Look closely at grubee's link that I am providing. scroll down to view the pedal start or the free wheel rope start version. The lock ring can be clearly seen. spooky and bicycle engines need to be more informed about what they sell. Neither one of these [spooky or bicycle engines stocks the lock ring[from what i can see] the drum brake part that threads on to the hub does the same thing as the lock ring. Been there done that. I laced up a HD axle almost two years ago when the HD axle first came out and no laced up pre built wheel was available Look at the below link

http://www.grubeeinc.com/USA/HD Rear Axel kit.htm
 
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band brake

ehh... i should have worded that better. i know how a band brake works, i meant to ask how well it worked

the brake is a supplimental brake to be used with the rear rim brake. By itself the band brake is a no go
 
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