Any hub motor mechanics in Chicago,Il. area?

Hello, I have a Golden Motor pro 901 that I ordered from China 2 months ago and the bike fell over and trashed the wires coming out of the axle. The motor still runs but I see that one of the hall wires is broke and 2 of the phase wires have damaged insulation. The damage is right at the axle end so there is no chance of splicing this together. I do not want to run it like this so I just parked it and cried. Is this a difficult job to break into the motor and just unsolder, pull the wires and resolder? I am pretty handy with tools but I do not know if I need any special pullers and what else to watch out for. This is my first e-bike and would like to try to handle the job myself, however, if this is more like rocket science, I do not mind paying a professional to do the job. Any input would be very helpful. Thank you all, and ride safe!

eliminatorzl900 said:

Hello, I have a Golden Motor pro 901 that I ordered from China 2 months ago and the bike fell over and trashed the wires coming out of the axle. The motor still runs but I see that one of the hall wires is broke and 2 of the phase wires have damaged insulation. The damage is right at the axle end so there is no chance of splicing this together. I do not want to run it like this so I just parked it and cried. Is this a difficult job to break into the motor and just unsolder, pull the wires and resolder? I am pretty handy with tools but I do not know if I need any special pullers and what else to watch out for. This is my first e-bike and would like to try to handle the job myself, however, if this is more like rocket science, I do not mind paying a professional to do the job. Any input would be very helpful. Thank you all, and ride safe!

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What do you have to lose? You probably aren't going to ruin the motor by removing the sides. I'd at least try and get the side of the motor off. Have you watched some videos on soldering? Pretty easy stuff once you understand it. I feel that one really important aspect of life is being optimistic in uncertainty, and excitement in learning. I am extremely guilty of spending wildly too long thinking about something before doing it, it's a terrible habit to have.

It seems strange to me that what you are saying is a thing today, mind boggling really. I don't know if I have ever seen a hub motor where even if the bike ended up laying on the axle, that the wires would still be fine (assuming the axle wasn't destroyed in the process). I am sure this goes without saying, but that is a feature in the next hub I get that I'd look for, wires that don't stick out.

I'm 1 1/2 hours away. North of Ohare.
PM me if you can get here, I don't drive.

You could slide some shrink over them. It takes removing all the covering and sliding it over the damage, then covering the harness.

Dan

Stock phase wires are notoriously too thin and more copper will fit through the axle, so it's best to reharness with larger gauge wires. It's not difficult and you typically only need to pull the cover off of that side. It's a meaningful upgrade, and afterward figure out a way to protect the wire exiting the axle much better so it doesn't happen again. If you have some extra axle on that side, then cutting the U deeper so only the end of the axle itself can contact the ground, not wires.

For a quick fix, maybe there's enough slack inside to pull the wire harness out enough to repair. Pop the cover off to verify, so you don't break wires pulling and make things worse. If there isn't enough slack, then you could split short lengths to each on the inside and pull it, or pull the harness from the inside until the damaged part is exposed and re-terminate them.

Before pulling the cover put an alignment marks on both covers and adjacent marks on the rotor ring between the spoke flanges and edge. That's so you can bolt the covers back on in the same orientation of bolt holes. I use a center punch a 1 dimple on one side and 2 dimples on the other as soon as I open the box of any new motor.

John

I have usually done that fix by pulling the wire further into the axle, then repairing the damaged wires inside the hub.

Hopefully you have an extra 6 inches of wire on the outside.

Pop the covers, it's a pretty easy fix. If too short, you can still extend the wires on the outside fairly easy.

If dogman's technique doesn't work, a full replacement job isn't too hard. If I can do it with only fair mech/elec skills most people can too. Here's my thread reworking wire/Hall sensors:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=48114&hilit=

thank you all for all your replies. I can not believe all the input and all the quick response. I do think that I will try to take this on myself, If I am going to get into the whole e-bike thing, I guess I better start out with a low end kit. I watch this site more than my own e-mails. Maybe some day I will be in your fellow e-bikers caliber, but until then, I will just watch and learn and enjoy your input. I really like the fact that you ALL have accepted me into your e-bike community. Again, I just want to thank you all for the boost of confidence to jump in with both feet and either learn or fail. The e-bike bug has got a hold of me and will not let go. Thankx much to Dogman, John in CR,for your dedication. I am sure there are many more that have responed to my problem and are more than willing to help and I REALLY,REALLY am greatful for that. Anyway, off I go to my garage and see what I can mess up,or fix. Anyway, If I really mess this up, do you know of anyone who has a GM PRO 901 48V 1000W rear hub 26 for sale? HAHA!! THANK YOU AGAIN and thank you for a great bunch of people. Be careful and be safe.

Just to add one more thing to this: the hardest part of this whole job can just be getting the side cover off if it's really stuck. The method I use is to slowly go around the outside where the side cover meets the center section with an old flat head screwdriver, lightly tapping the backside with a hammer. This should slowly start to loosen up the seal between the plate and the center section. Once you have a millimeter or two gap, get a couple screwdrivers under it on opposite sides and slowly and gingerly start twisting/lifting. You want to apply even pressure the whole way around. Once you've got it moving, it should come. The only problem is when the plate is sort of rust/glued on and really doesn't want to budge. Good luck.

edit: just be careful if you stick anything under the plate as a prying implement that you don't knick the copper coils.

John in CR said:

Stock phase wires are notoriously too thin and more copper will fit through the axle, so it's best to reharness with larger gauge wires. It's not difficult and you typically only need to pull the cover off of that side. It's a meaningful upgrade, and afterward figure out a way to protect the wire exiting the axle much better so it doesn't happen again. If you have some extra axle on that side, then cutting the U deeper so only the end of the axle itself can contact the ground, not wires.

For a quick fix, maybe there's enough slack inside to pull the wire harness out enough to repair. Pop the cover off to verify, so you don't break wires pulling and make things worse. If there isn't enough slack, then you could split short lengths to each on the inside and pull it, or pull the harness from the inside until the damaged part is exposed and re-terminate them.

Before pulling the cover put an alignment marks on both covers and adjacent marks on the rotor ring between the spoke flanges and edge. That's so you can bolt the covers back on in the same orientation of bolt holes. I use a center punch a 1 dimple on one side and 2 dimples on the other as soon as I open the box of any new motor.

John

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Thank you for that advice, John in CR. I do not have any slack to play with, so I am going to have to pull the wheel and open her up. I will do as you suggest and use larger gauge wire, however, I will not have enough diameter to fit through the axle. The only thing I can feasibly think of is to pull the existing size through the axle and soldering larger gauge right out of the axle. I believe Dogman may have said before that this is OK. Anyway, as you all can tell, I am a noob to the e-bike thing and I just have 2 questions. 1, do I need to order a freewheel tool, as my wires come out on that side (GM PRO 901 rear) and #2, which wire gauge do you suggest as I have a 1000w/48v kit and the wires have never even been warm, actually, even after a 35 mile ride in 85 degree weather, nothing has ever been warm as I do not hammer on my ride at all. I do want to upgrade to bigger wires since this seems like a popular thing to do and I might as well do it since it will be apart anyway. I see that 12 gauge is pretty standard, is this OK size? I have to lengthen the hall wires too, should I use larger size for that too or could I use telephone wire? I thank you very much for all your time for all the replies you have given. EliminatorZL900. P.S. I apologize in advance to Dogman if what I stated above was not what he said. Sorry Dogman.

No freewheel tool needed. Your gears will stay on the motor cover plate and the whole thing will come off as one piece.

12 awg is best, 14 is ok. You've probably got 16 which is eh, it works but it's not optimal for high heat. You should use teflon coated wire. I've gotten it from McMaster-Carr before, but there are probably cheaper options.

I don't enlarge axle hole so the largest I've managed to fit has been 14ga teflon insulated from Home Depot. However, I install bullet connectors a few inches outside the axle then and use heavy insulated 3 conductor 12ga power tool cord for the frame run to the controller. That stuff is very flexible (full suspension), tough and handles being cinched to the frame with tie wraps much better than teflon insulation which can "cold creep" from the pressure of being held in place with tie-wraps.

Similar for the Hall wires I use a short chunk of the original 28-30ga teflon wires through the axle terminate with connectors to some nice flexible 5 conductor audio cable I have laying around for the frame run.

The above "recipe" has been more than adequate for 2kW (30A battery/70A phase) peak power levels for +10k miles and several years running.

finally, after a loooong vacation, I finally made it home and got to spend some time on my wiring coming out of my axle. Took the motor apart and pulled the frayed part through, resoldered everything and upgraded to 12awg coming just out past the axle. Now I am happy again to have my bike running, now I plan to ride until it snows here. I wish to thank you all who replied to my post and I am very grateful, all the info is priceless.Again, thanks for the advice and the quick replies with the info. Ride safe everyone!!!