Today the temperature plunged to 30°C. That’s almost freezing after the days of 40+ With time on my hands whilst waiting for the postman to deliver various purchases I decided to make a start on the ebike conversion. The rivet nuts haven’t arrived, which precludes me from fitting the battery mount, so I decided to remove unnecessary components off the bike and install additional parts required as part of the conversion.
The Bafang motor came with a complementary headlight and I decided that would be the first thing to fit. Wanting to keep the lines of the bike clean, I decided to run the headlight cable inside the frame where it would be concealed. The bike already had three concealed cables and hoses. The rear derailleur control cable, the rear hydraulic brake hose and the front derailleur control cable. The front derailleur is going to be removed along with the three speed chain rings on the centre hub. The Bafang has only one chain ring.
My plan was to replace the centre derailleur cable with the headlight cable. I intended to do this by taping twine to the derailleur end of the control cable and pull it through the frame. I would then remove the derailleur cable and attach the headlight cable to the twine before pulling it back through the frame.
Blue twine to act as a drawer wire
Well the combined diameter of the twine and cable was too large to fit through the hole in the frame. After attempting several alternative methods I realised the drawer cord idea wasn’t going to work. PLAN B. Feed the headlight cable into the top hole in the frame and ‘fish around’ at the lower end with a piece of 16 gauge wire to ‘snag’ it. Half and hour later I finally managed to extract the cable from the bottom of the frame.
That’s the cable hanging down. To get it out of the way I cable tied it back up the frame member that goes to the seat post and then fitted the headlight.
The headlight will be connected into the Bafang management system and controlled via the display on the handlebars.
Next step involved removing the front derailleur. To do this required splitting the chain. No removable links in the chain! I must be showing my age. as both of my previous bikes had chains with a removable link. However I had purchased a chain splitting tool and managed to break a link allowing removal of the derailleur.
With that done I removed the combined derailleur control and hydraulic brake lever from the handlebars. This enable me to fit the motor speed controller and the throttle lever to the left of the bell.
The Throttle lever will only be used in an emergency as I don’t want to damage the motor by forcing it to do too much work.
The display was then fitted.
It’s a monochrome display, which was a deliberate choice on my part. I’ve found colour displays hard to read in the bright Australian sun. You can also see the action camera mount to the right of the display in the above photo.
The final step for the day was to remove the combination derailleur and brake lever replacing it with just a hydraulic lever. I really had to hunt online for this lever in order to get it at a price that was acceptable (to me).
As part of the installation I needed to bleed the rear brakes. Another first!
Now I must wait for the rivet nuts
4 comments :
Hi Tom
Might be worth adding a grommet or some tape to protect the cable where it enters and exits the frame. Where the headlight is when you turn the steering the cable will move and over time could chafe in the hole and wear through the insulation.
Re the rivet nuts. I assume you mean rivnuts, have you got the tool to set them as you can't do it with a standard pop rivet tool. You can at a pinch do it with a bolt, washer and nut screwed into the rivet nut but its not as good as the proper tool.
So you took some BW mooring lines home with you? Pity you couldn't splice it on the end and get it through the hole in the frame.
Dave I have already checked the hole in the frame and am satisfied it has been made on an angle and the edges rounded. I plan on using the bolt/washer/nut method for the rivet nuts rather than spend additional money for a 'one time' use of the rivet tool.
Brian I always knew my past would catch up with me! Please don't tell CRT as I double we can afford the postage to return it.
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