Fired up and actually rode my first motorized bike today.

I rode the bike as far as the house next door and immediately came to a couple conclusions. First thing is the 25 year old rock shox Judy is not up to the task. I am going to find a steel threadless 1 1/8 rigid fork that is disc brake ready unless any of you folks could recommend a affordable yet well made suspension fork. Second thing is the coaster brake is pretty much worthless as a few of you guys had told me would probably be the case with it I don't have any idea what I am going to do for the rear brake. But it was a really good feeling to fire it up and actually ride it even if it was only for a couple hundred feet. I got a disc brake coming for the front but I'm thinking I might want to get a 4 piston front brake caliper instead of the one I have on the way. Half the fun of building this is figuring out what to do. Im still going to weld one more layer of tubing to the top tube and down tube so those will have three tubes total even though two of the three will have been split like clam shells and welded over the frame. I also think ill put a couple gussets to the rear triangle. Then my friend is going to normalize the frame in the oven at his work. It's been really fun so far and I'm learning a lot more than I ever imagined I would. Get this one all finished and I can start building a second bike that will actually be street legal

 

[J-sizzles]

Saint Sheldon may be able to help. I am assuming the rear drop outs are 110mm. You may he able to find a disc brake hub with 130mm old but 135mm will be the most common for single speed hubs with disc brakes. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-spacing.html

It was originally 135mm but used 700c road tires, the wheel and tire I put in are 26" with a 2.125 tire with a 110mm hub. The tire would rub the chainstays so I heated it and bent it out to fit the tire the I tacked a bar in that area and heated it and bent from there to bring the chainstays in to fit the hub. I'm going to have my buddy who know a lot about metallurgy give me his opinion. I think it will be okay since he is going to normalize the frame in the oven but I want to talk to him before I bend it anymore.

 

[J-sizzles]

There are also adapters that thread onto the free wheel, so the action of braking would tighten the adapter but you would lose the ability to pedal and the hub would have to flip.

The pedals are pretty much decorative at this point. I widened the spindle with rebar which is temporary until I buy a proper wide set. I also saw a setup on YouTube that the guy used a 16mm shaft going through the bottom bracket as his spindle and jackshaft with freewheels and moped cranks and had bearings that fit in his bottom bracket and had a 16mm i.d. for the jackshaft spindle combination. It was a pretty good setup that I might try to replicate. I need to replace the shaft and bearings that came with my ebay jackshaft kit anyway because the i.d. of the bearings was 14mm although it was advertised as 16mm. The guy gave me 75% of my money back and I ground part of the shaft with a angle grinder just to be able to put stuff together. This is definitely a learning experience but I really like it that way. I figure the experience I get with this build will make future projects much sweeter. I had no plan going in to this it is pretty much figure it out as I go. Next time around I'll have a lot better idea what will work or won't and I will have a idea of the finished project before I start. This is definitely a lot more to figure out as opposed to tossing a e bike kit on a bike. Next time I will definitely use a smaller engine I know that much right now

 

[J-sizzles]

If you can pipe weld well enough to stretch the frame you should have no trouble welding on a disc brake tab for the rear.

This is the YouTube video with the jackshaft spindle combination I was talking about. This guy is pretty cool he is the only person who put up a YouTube video that actually answers me when I asked him questions.

 

[DAMIEN1307]

There isn't room for a disc brake without bending the frame which might be the solution.

I am assuming you might mean stretching the frame in the rear to accommodate a disk brake...This is what I had to do to my beach cruiser to fit mine in and a specialised tool I made for cheap money to do the spreading / stretching of the frame.

I don't recommend this method on an aluminum frame because it would probably crack and break, but this is what i did on my Steel Frame Hyper Beach Cruiser to accomodate the rear sprocket and disk to fit within the dropouts and frame.

On my bike, (steel frame ONLY), i had to "stretch" the rear forks apart by hand, about 1/2 an inch to put the rear wheel with sprocket/rotor attached, and then use a spare 15MM axle nut on the sprocket/rotor inside of the drop down, threaded to the axle with blue locktite, to maintain that amount of "stretch" to accommodate the amount of of clearance space the rotor needs so as not to be pressed against the frame.

It helps to have a buddy with a strong pair of hands to help in this proceedure like I did...lol.

If you don't have 4 arms, or a buddy with too good arms to stretch things out, you can click on the links below to see what I do when I have to do it all by myseld...lol.

This link below will show you how to make a frame stretcher tool for spreading the rear of the frame if your going to use mag rims with disk brakes on your bike.....Beware, do NOT attempt stretching aluminum frames as they will crack and break.

Spreading rear bike frame (steel)

It’s nice to have an unusually strong friend around to help you stretch out the rear frame for modified rear wheel accommodation.

motoredbikes.com

And this link showing pics of how it is used to stretch the frame.

Spreading rear bike frame (steel)

It’s nice to have an unusually strong friend around to help you stretch out the rear frame for modified rear wheel accommodation.

motoredbikes.com

 

[darwin]

Incredible bike, what's wrong with the front shocks? Bottom out too easy?

 

[J-sizzles]

Incredible bike, what's wrong with the front shocks? Bottom out too easy?

Yes it just is so bouncy. It's a 25 year old shock with no damper. Just not up to the task.

 

[Al Regresar]

I rode the bike as far as the house next door and immediately came to a couple conclusions. First thing is the 25 year old rock shox Judy is not up to the task. I am going to find a steel threadless 1 1/8 rigid fork that is disc brake ready unless any of you folks could recommend an affordable yet well made suspension fork. Second thing is the coaster brake is pretty much worthless as a few of you guys had told me would probably be the case with it I don't have any idea what I am going to do for the rear brake. But it was a really good feeling to fire it up and actually ride it even if it was only for a couple hundred feet. I got a disc brake coming for the front but I'm thinking I might want to get a 4 piston front brake caliper instead of the one I have on the way. Half the fun of building this is figuring out what to do. Im still going to weld one more layer of tubing to the top tube and down tube so those will have three tubes total even though two of the three will have been split like clam shells and welded over the frame. I also think ill put a couple gussets to the rear triangle. Then my friend is going to normalize the frame in the oven at his work. It's been really fun so far and I'm learning a lot more than I ever imagined I would. Get this one all finished and I can start building a second bike that will actually be street legal

Nice work.

 

[Al Regresar]

Nice work.

Could Judy be rebuilt?

 

[J-sizzles]

Could Judy be rebuilt?

It's a elastomer shock in the heat they get really soft and in the cold they get hard. It's also 28mm so not a lot of strength to begin with. It was a solid cross country shock in its day which was 1998.