Keeping your front electric hub from spinning your wheel off

[Blaze]

I was going to write about how it's a major safety issue to run a front electric hub without a torque arm installed, and how your wheel can spin right off the bike without one. I pretty much already covered everything under another subject. If you are are installing an electric hub on your front wheel, please read the following subject in the Electric Avenue forum: "Poll: Has your front hub motor spun out of your forks?" There is a lot of very detailed information in there.

The other thing you need to do is install a safety catch for your front wheel in case the axle comes loose. Right now, I am using .032 steel safety wire, wrapped around the axle nuts and through a hole in the dropouts three times. I hope I never have to actually test it, but I think it should work.

 

[gone_fishin]

i don't own one yet, but soon...

based on your great info, i'm already designing a fork with major thick dropouts, the final outer one being a thru-hole for the axle-"catcher"...i do feel that i can make it work & i know i'll give it my best shot no matter what occurs.

see, i think that the thick dropout will be forced "backwards" against the fork-tube, that's my intended anchor point, the bolt only serving to keep it all in place. if i need more leverage on the t-arm, i'll extend the outer add-on further up the tube.

i can't wait to try it out...

 

[Blaze]

Cool. Take pictures when you build it. A lot of the motors might not have the same problems as mine, but it's better to be safe than sorry, eh? My 48v 600w motor is a dropout mangler. I'm looking forward to see what you build.

 

[Sianelle]

It only happened to me once on my very first e.bike based on an old Raleigh frame and forks. It was a big shock to see my front wheel trying to leave without me and as a result I was much more careful about checking over the tightness of my front axle nuts on a regular basis.

 

[rguy56]

Thanks, Blaze.

That great article you wrote before was the first thing I read here, because the first thing my first electric bike did was spin its' axle out... Both of my feet were planted, no damage...so I cranked on the bolts a bit tighter, and went for a spin. I rolled on the throttle in a right turn, and, well, I still have the torn rotator cuff.

I followed your advice when building a second bike, and have a lovely stainless steel custom torque arm on it. Dark fantasies of lost front wheels haunt my rides, still, and I may try to copy that wired on idea.

Thanks again,

Bob

 

[bucvoss]

I run two torque arms on my two trikes. my trike will run close to 40 on 60 volts with the 5303 front hub motor and stock Schwinn fork (over a 1000 miles so far ). you really need the tg arms on any hub motor IMHO . I also run 5 75amp hour wet batterys so the sucka is also heavy..lol