Everything was going smoothly until I tried to put the motor mount on. The new bike frame wouldn't allow me to mount the bracket straight with all four screws. My solution: Drill another hole. In my previous post I showed where a philips screw was placed, this was the area I needed my new hole. I decided dead center would work best and proceeded to drill through my bracket and my two mounting posts. Doing this gave me a nice triangular bolt placement. While this isn't quite as good as four bolts, it is second best. So, after a loosely securing the bracket I needed to check motor alignment. Turns out I was pretty close and only needed a slight adjustment before I was ready to tighten everything down.
Meanwhile I was trying to remove my grips and they were so old they just shredded from the friction. I didn't think this was a big deal and proceeded to remove my left brake lever and shifters. Then I ran into my first snag. The bike had bullhorn handlebars and the throttle wouldn't go on them. So I decided to frankenstein my old bike and new one. I now have the old handlebars and bar-ends on the new bike and the bullhorns on the old. This worked fine but took some time to do. I also had to remove my old rear shifter cable and housings since the cable runs right underneath the motor mount. I purchased a new cable and housing to redirect it around the mount instead.
The new bike came with knobby tires and the rims had different diameter quick releases on them so I had to swap tires and tubes. Then I put on my new chain. I used this video from bicycletutor.com to take the guesswork out of the length. I merely wrapped the chain around my biggest sprocket and front gear while running it through the motors mechanism. After pulling it tight I just needed to add two full links to that length and I would be good to go. Turns out I only had two links left over after the resize. After that I readjusted my brakes and went for a test ride. The mechanics seemed fine until I tried to shift and nothing happened. The previous owner had warned me that the rapidfire shifters sometimes needed a little oil to get them going every now and then. A bit of chain lube to the mechanism and I was back in business. During the test ride the pedals seemed to slip when I applied power, this was normal and just meant that the crank freewheel was tightening down.
Now that my mechanics test ride was done I could focus more on the motor. I rechecked the alignment, tightened it down, and put my Ping battery in my backpack to do a road test. A quick standing test showed that all the electronics were working and that the motor wouldn't get stuck in the on position. Once on the road I gave the motor a bit of juice and joyed in the burst of acceleration that occurred. I gave it a bit more and cruised a little further then turned back for home. It was then I noticed that the motor had shifted a bit and I could no longer pedal. I used the motors power sparingly to putter home and went to reallign it again. After I was sure that the pedals wouldn't strike the motor anymore I loosened it one bolt at a time, applied Locktite, and tightened it back down. I spent the next 3-5 minutes tightening each bolt in turn, checking alignment and pedal clearance and tightening some more. After the motor was so tight that I feared breaking a bolt if I went anymore, I took it for another spin. This time, everything worked perfectly. I zipped happily along my street back and forth for a few minutes, making sure everything was in working order. Pleased with my work I went inside for a short break in preparation for the bikes maiden voyage.
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