Putting the electric bits on required the following steps:
- Mount 80 tooth sprocket on 20″ rear wheel (which is actually on the front of the bike). Get a freewheel adapter and this is a 10 minute job. Look on Youtube for how to remove the sprockets on the wheel. Without a freewheel adapter you are looking at some machining time.
- Create a mount for the motor. The hole needed by the motor seems to be standardized. The motors are mounted using three bolts. I used 1/4″ bolts. Watch that your motor bolts don’t interfere with the chain. You will need a right angle piece of steel at least 1/8″ thick. This must be attached to the bike at three points or it will not hold still when changing the speed of the motor. I used a flat piece of steel across the forks above the wheel held by two bolts. I took my 90 degree angle steel and put one hole through the steel so that the bolt passed through the steel, into the hole where the old caliper brakes used to be attached. The second hole I drilled used one of the bolts for the flat piece of steel I had already attached. The third hole was located in between the forks. I englarged the holes vertically so I could adjust the tension; but actually it turned out to be more important to get the alignment horizontally adjustable, and I ended up using a dremel to make one inch, horizontal slots. To set the tension, I put the lower two bolts on, mounted the chain, then threaded the top bolt (that used the caliper hole) with some washer to set the tension.
- Replace hand grips or otherwise add a throttle. You can remove the old grips by shoving a screw driver under them, then pouring soapy water in. Then just work them off. Likewise, put a little bit of soap in the new hand grips and they will go on easily. When the soap dries the hand grips will stay in place.
- Add a battery holder. Uprights often use a luggage rack with saddle bags or ziptied or bungee chorded battery boxes. I welded a metal box to the bottom of my bike, taking care not to interfere with the chain path or my legs.
- Add wires. I used lamp cord.
Voila, that was all it took. Soldering and other wiring only took about half an hour. The motor mounting was troublesome; but my battery box was the most consuming part of the project. I welded the box out of pieces of steel, and then welded it in place upside down, nearly setting the seat on fire and melting some of my Delron ‘idler’ block. So, please, just find an appropriate box and bolt it on.
The motor mounting was a pain, but luckily using 3 bolts with only the bar at the bottom fixed allowed me to tension the chain without extra work