Gordy
Well-Known Member
Call it what you will
Bad Luck Boy looking for motored bike and motor kit ideas.
- Thread starter bad luck guy
- Start date
Schmidty Boy
Well-Known Member
@bad luck guy no one is blaming you and I'm still open to listen and give advice but I'm not gonna listen to you play victim just because we have different opinions.
I just did Gordy...lol...Don't cha just luv South Boston Irish symantics???...lol...lol.
Stick around kid, I got a heck of a lot more where that came from...lol...lol.
Gordy
Well-Known Member
Well at least someone here is still willing to help. Let's see if that lasts lol
YES, I moved and made a new thread from an existing one so as not to have a decent, genuine, asking for help type thread from being so thoroughly hijacked...DAMIEN
I finally got all FOUR PAGES and 34 postings of this transferred out of the other thread and into its own thread where it belongs...lol.
Just to poke the bear a bit more. Let's consider things from an engineering/maintenance point of view.
The bucking bar and ball bearing are engineered weak points. Since these engines don't have any internal oil to lubricate any of these moving parts they are reliant on grease, which is just oil suspended in soap. With this in mind, let's look at some talking points.
1. Reliance on grease is a system weakness compared to an oil bath. There is less temperature control and reduced ability to lubricate all points at all times since grease "melts" when it reaches certain temperatures and may flow away from high friction points when lubrication is the most critical.
2. Due to that weakness it means that those parts will wear more quickly. With this in mind they are made out of a material to take the majority of the wear to absorb as much of that energy as possible.
3. Choosing to make those parts be sacrificial, they also made them very easy to access and replace. The clutch arm, bucking bar, and ball bearing can all be replaced in a matter of minutes.
4. There are ways to upgrade the bucking bar, which is important if doing any clutch upgrades that increase spring pressure. The most common/easiest method I have seen is to use the shank of a drill bit of the appropriate size. The downide to making one part out of a harder steel is that the other parts now become even weaker and putting more load/force into the other parts of the system. The ball bearing side can be solved by using a high quality bearing of similar hardness to the bucking bar, but this then runs the risk of wearing down the plunger for the flower nut side. The clutch arm will also potentially wear faster since the bucking bar will resist wearing more, and the energy has to go somewhere.
5. ALL of that makes grease choice critical. You can use any ol' grease and for most engines/operators it will suffice as long as maintained properly. That means the clutch components are cleaned and inspected at regular intervals and fresh grease applied. If this is not done, everything wears faster.
For me, I will spend more to utilize a high temperature machine grease with a very high moly content. Molybdenum Disulfide is a "boundry layer" lubricant that is incredibly good at preventing wear in high pressure friction situations just like the ball bearing end of the clutch system.
One can also use a variety of high temp moly greases on the market. These include 3% moly greases like Mystik JT6, CRC Sta-Lube Moly-Graph, or my personal choice is one of a few brands with a 5% content like Republic Oil Heavy Duty EP2 5% , Mystik CalSuPlex (hard to find in tubes), Belray Extreme pressure (also hard to find in tubes), and Schaeffer 238 Ultra Suprememe 5% which is the one I use as it is the easiest to find in a single tube.
As for the argument of replacing bucking bars and ball bearings "often," I ran my Phantom 85 for a couple thousand miles on the original parts and they had almost zero wear showing when I inspected them before giving that engine to my girlfriends son for his own build. In the 10 or so years I have been messing around with the 2 stroke engines, across multiple engines, I may have replaced 2 bucking bars and ball bearings due to wear.
Proper maintenance and the right lubrication for the job go a long way.
Another way to reduce wear on those parts long term is to not idle the engine with the clutch pulled in any more than necessary. Once my engines are up to temp, if I come to a stop that I know will be longer than maybe 10 or so seconds, I kill the engine. This keeps me from over heating as well as putting unnecessary wear on said components.
The bucking bar and ball bearing are engineered weak points. Since these engines don't have any internal oil to lubricate any of these moving parts they are reliant on grease, which is just oil suspended in soap. With this in mind, let's look at some talking points.
1. Reliance on grease is a system weakness compared to an oil bath. There is less temperature control and reduced ability to lubricate all points at all times since grease "melts" when it reaches certain temperatures and may flow away from high friction points when lubrication is the most critical.
2. Due to that weakness it means that those parts will wear more quickly. With this in mind they are made out of a material to take the majority of the wear to absorb as much of that energy as possible.
3. Choosing to make those parts be sacrificial, they also made them very easy to access and replace. The clutch arm, bucking bar, and ball bearing can all be replaced in a matter of minutes.
4. There are ways to upgrade the bucking bar, which is important if doing any clutch upgrades that increase spring pressure. The most common/easiest method I have seen is to use the shank of a drill bit of the appropriate size. The downide to making one part out of a harder steel is that the other parts now become even weaker and putting more load/force into the other parts of the system. The ball bearing side can be solved by using a high quality bearing of similar hardness to the bucking bar, but this then runs the risk of wearing down the plunger for the flower nut side. The clutch arm will also potentially wear faster since the bucking bar will resist wearing more, and the energy has to go somewhere.
5. ALL of that makes grease choice critical. You can use any ol' grease and for most engines/operators it will suffice as long as maintained properly. That means the clutch components are cleaned and inspected at regular intervals and fresh grease applied. If this is not done, everything wears faster.
For me, I will spend more to utilize a high temperature machine grease with a very high moly content. Molybdenum Disulfide is a "boundry layer" lubricant that is incredibly good at preventing wear in high pressure friction situations just like the ball bearing end of the clutch system.
One can also use a variety of high temp moly greases on the market. These include 3% moly greases like Mystik JT6, CRC Sta-Lube Moly-Graph, or my personal choice is one of a few brands with a 5% content like Republic Oil Heavy Duty EP2 5% , Mystik CalSuPlex (hard to find in tubes), Belray Extreme pressure (also hard to find in tubes), and Schaeffer 238 Ultra Suprememe 5% which is the one I use as it is the easiest to find in a single tube.
As for the argument of replacing bucking bars and ball bearings "often," I ran my Phantom 85 for a couple thousand miles on the original parts and they had almost zero wear showing when I inspected them before giving that engine to my girlfriends son for his own build. In the 10 or so years I have been messing around with the 2 stroke engines, across multiple engines, I may have replaced 2 bucking bars and ball bearings due to wear.
Proper maintenance and the right lubrication for the job go a long way.
Another way to reduce wear on those parts long term is to not idle the engine with the clutch pulled in any more than necessary. Once my engines are up to temp, if I come to a stop that I know will be longer than maybe 10 or so seconds, I kill the engine. This keeps me from over heating as well as putting unnecessary wear on said components.
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robe
Well-Known Member
You can buy cheap ones. Better get two or three just for practice.
The lads are giving you the best of their experience and you choose to disregard it.
Not much more I can say about that.
The lads are giving you the best of their experience and you choose to disregard it.
Not much more I can say about that.
bad luck guy
Member
That happened before I knew about this forum. All Bicycle engine kits should warn people about it and advise people to take off the fenders. Referring people to this forum would be helpful as well, but a clear warning in bold is needed.We have warned about this happening on the forums for many years and we have seen how bent up the wheel was.
The information was always there, you just didn't look for it because you probably thought you were master mechanic or something like that.
Safety - Beware the fenders!!!
Don't take the warning lightly!!!!!! My son in law is in the hospital in critical condition cause of the fender getting into the tire and rolling around till it locked the front wheel and threw him over the bars. Of course he wasn't wearing a helmet:helmet: This just happened Wednesday. Here's...motoredbikes.com
If you had read our many past posts or joined our forum back then, you would have had plenty of warning about these fenders.
The second you saw that were no instructions, you should have immediately looked up forums or instruction videos like 99% of the people who have joined this forum....I am not "trying to blame me for buying a kit with poor instructions?"
I'm blaming you for not using the internet to find good instructional sources...lol.
Not at all...I'm a retired old man, in and out of the hospital all the time and going to an eye surgeon for injections in my eyeballs all the time in order to save whats left of my vision.
I do what I have to do to build a quality build all on a Social Security budget.
Almost everyone here is on a budget of some sort, you certainly don't see rich people getting their hands dirty doing this stuff...lol.
We don't have time for personal "Pitty Parties".
Yes it is BS...Why???, Your betting your bodily well being and/or your very life and the life of others by doing things on the cheap at the very lowest cost you can find...It reminds me of things being built by the lowest bidders, parts for space shuttles come to mind from Morton Thiokol Inc...lol...lol..."Blow me up Scotty"...Ooooops, I meant beam me up...lol.
Also cars that are very cheaply built, break down constantly, have no real passenger protection, etc...Does anyone here remember the Pinto and the Yugo???...lol...lol.
bad luck guy
Member
I recommended kits that had an optional 2 year protection plan for an extra $7. Zeda kits only have a 6 month warranty and they cost more than that including the extra 7 bucks for the 2 on Amazon. People on this forum were touting Zeda's warranty, so based on that there is a better deal on Amazon. If you think I should choose to disregard that please tell me why. That is all I ask.