Bike mechanic starting mobile repair trailer, ebike specific tools worth adding

Hi guys,

I'm pretty new on here but over the last few years began moonlighting as a bike mechanic. With the lack of shops close by and nobody specializing in e-bikes, I decided to bike the bullet and get a 7x12 trailer next season and jump all in to mobile bike repair

Due to the increasing numbers of e-bikes and my recent interest, plus the fact that they are very few bike shops near me, I think the potential is huge for someone who is able to service a lot of these bikes as most of the people out here don't want to touch them aside from basic things like tube replacements. I have a pretty large selection of tools but I'm looking to add more both for mobile and at home

I've been working on normal bikes and on and off in shops for over 20 years now and have a bit of basic electrical knowledge due to also working on bmw/mercedes/rover most of my life and playing around with car audio and rc cars so while there is a lot to learn, I have a bit of a jump start

Aside from normal bicycle tools, and typical electrical things like soldering station, multimeters, a good selection of terminals and crimpers, a spot welder for custom packs (was considering a k weld or malectrics arduino unit) what are some good tools to have handy? I have a decent amount of wheelbuilding tools at my shop And I'm going to get another park ts4.2, dishing tool, spoke tension gauge etc for the trailer

A couple of years ago the ebikes started trickling into the shop I was working for and nobody there wanted to touch them. The story from the customers was that nobody would touch them at all and they wanted us to at least try. This time I would like to be competent enough to proudly advertise as specializing in e bike repair as unless you have a truck or specialized, the nearest service centers for a lot of the guys are a hundred plus miles away

Any input is appreciated and thanks in advance!

what area?

Gosh, I wonder what your insurance rate will be to cover ebikes and their batteries. Batteries from major manufacturers to our DIY packs put together on our coffee tables and microwave oven transformers, or friction contacts, or solder joints.

How do you even get certified to work on those major manufacturer ebike, how much does that cost.

Do you buy an expensive spoke threading machine or the cheap Hozan.

What about permits from the city?

Then there is the hazardous materials in the brake system. I know of a community bicycle store that wouldnt touch hydraulic oil braking systems, insurance reasons again.

Spot welder, K-weld machine - Oh the insurance agent will love you.

I build a few bikes per year and insist that the customers buy the battery and bring it to me. I enjoy building batteries but the liability issue is just too high to be worth it.

A 7x12 trailer sounds way to big to pull around with an ebike, which is the way you should go to minimize your cost of transportation.

Get yourself a couple of cheap ebike testers (one for backup). Identifying the problem is more than half the battle, and typically you'll have to go through a process of elimination to eliminate things that are functioning correctly. Ebike testers make that quick and easy.

Thanks for the replies, I'm on long island, somewhat close to Montauk. a few of the local shops have closed in the last couple of years and there's a huge market right now for service in a premium that people are willing to pay because they don't want to bring any of their bikes anywhere or do any leg work.

My best friend runs a hardware store and the bike shop in his town closed, so we began repairing bikes on the side. This year on repairs alone we did 70k so far with zero advertising and that was turning away bikes left and right due to the pandemic causing shortages in parts availability

Insurance regarding the batteries is a very valid point. Perhaps I should steer clear of this or even suggesting vendors for batteries aside from major brands like Bosch or Yamaha for the factory bikes that I can get from QBP.

I have seen more and more entry-level bikes like rad power and big cat popping up around here, many of which use the shark style batteries or similar so perhaps as a worst case I can steer buyers towards Luna or a reputable US vendor so that way at least I know the replacements are quality and whoever is putting them together has adequate insurance

there are a couple of other mobile bike repairs on the island but they primarily operate on a smaller scale without a trailer or much of anything.

Parts for Shimano, bosch, fazua etc are available now from my normal distributor but as far as certification I have to look into what is involved. In all honesty, most people here are in their vacation homes and would Rather have somebody come and fix things and not have to think about it then bring their bike to a certified repair center. It's pretty commonplace for shoddy gas station service centers to be loaded with new Porsches and Land rovers getting service done because they happen to be closer than a dealer

I had given thought to using an e-bike for some of the service but the problem is the distance between houses would make it difficult as it's so spread out.

Also, the idea of being able to keep a lot of the tools and workbench etc inside will free up some of the space around the house and make my wife happy

Remember there's a lot of junk ebikes out there that you don't even want to touch just because they are junk and highly problematic.
Random ebikes are made so many different ways with different products different plugs different everything. Even pedago had battery recall.

The expensive Euro bikes are one thing, with their proprietary systems and need for diagnostic gear, but the cheap junkers are easy to get running with replacement controllers/motors. It's a question of whether he can get them to pay enough for his time, and whether he can get in a supply of inexpensive motors and black boxes.

I don't think he needs tools as much as spare parts,Keep a sensorless controller on hand to test motors. Keep a motor onhand to test conbtrollers. Oacks with circuit breakers and fustes to substitute batteries. DItto for chargers.

With folks with ebikes out Montauk way, them having money to pay is not an issue.

Arrogant entitlement might be. . .

2 tools more important than all others, and they're free.

1. Patience
2. An open mind......

Even the cheapest of the cheap e-bikes are often repaired very simply. Turning your nose up regarding them could cost you a lot of money. Just be prepared to bail on them quickly if it looks ugly.... Like if they smell like an electrical fire.... Just keep in mind all repairs and maintenance are not always electrical in nature.

Insurance is a big deal. A friend worked on a buddy's small motorcycle for him, as much of a favor as anything else. Turns out this buddy was an idiot, who blew up the fresh motor that had been installed soon after he got it back. The buddy then sued him, and won, with a judgement that included WAY WAY more than the repair bill that he paid (for his inconvenience and legal fees).

Big as that trailer will be, have a couple of build e-bikes for sale, how many tools does an ebike need.

ZeroEm said:

Big as that trailer will be, have a couple of build e-bikes for sale, how many tools does an ebike need.

Click to expand...

Not that many tools involved in building or fixing an ebike.

Would you have confidence in an ebike mechanic/builder with one of these
https://em3ev.com/shop/ebike-tester/

I don't see why not, it's the mechanic's skill level that is important, he needs to pick the tools he needs to do the job.

If you as an individual human own very little property in your name

then you are very unlikely to get sued for much, in effect limits your liabilities not covered by insurance.

One of the few benefits of not being well off.

A strategy that can be used by those who are, but then it can cost a fair bit to establish and maintain the legal infrastructures required.

Thanks again for all the replies. I have been thinking it over and liability wise, I am pretty sure that repairing and rebuilding batteries is something I should steer clear of, perhaps with the exception of a few select customers that I know of can trust. It's probably worthwhile to have a few us based vendors that are somewhat trustworthy for more common formats like shark packs etc, perhaps luna, and UPP on the lower end

Definitely worth keeping things like generic KT controllers, probably a few throttles and pedal assist sensors and things of that nature on hand. Not looking to make a killing on parts, but if I play it smart and order a decent enough quantity from China where I can offset long shipping times or high shipping costs places like BMS may not be a bad bet for things like that. Probably a few geared hub motors leased into common sized wheels wouldn't be a bad thing to at least have it home just in case. Try as I may, it's hard to beat the cost of some of the pre-assembled wheels against the labor time and parts cost to assemble myself unless it's a special circumstance

Having been in the service business most of my life dealing with everything ranging from cars to outdoor kitchens, I've gotten used to some of the snobby attitudes and difficult clients, but generally it's 90% good and 10% bad. When the options for service are so limited, half of the bad ones come around I have found.

I had a friend years and years ago who had a client who was an HVAC technician here back in the 1980s when things were just starting to boom and he had an incredibly difficult customer. The eventual outcome was that he told him that he had just lost his opportunity to have his equipment serviced because aside from the technician, there was only one other person in the area who was able to work on it and it happened to be his friend

Luckily , I haven't had much of a problem and even with the pandemic causing massive shortages of parts for normal bikes most people have been very easy to work with so I consider myself lucky in that aspect. Also, it helps to be willing to take some of the blame and not dwell on a few nasty interactions

I do like the idea of having a couple of bikes for sale and even considered having a few loaners on the fleet pending what type of insurance I would need or if it would be covered under the same general liability policy I have for repairs

Since I have a vendor agreement in place for Yakima/Thule , I am also contemplating installing rack systems since nobody around here really sells or installs them. as far as I know, few people around here sell them and none of them are installers so it may be an interesting niche as well

Thanks again for the suggestions and support and I will update as things progress.

As of now I'm looking at 7x12 trailers with rooftop awnings so I can work outside on a nice day. It should be fun setting up an auxiliary power system with solar panels on top and a nice battery bank inside if I can get it sorted out properly to run the air compressor etc

Finding the right tow vehicle will prove to be interesting, I have a Tacoma now but it is a four-cylinder and should suffice for the beginning but probably won't have enough power to really be ideal

My old school euro background is getting the best of me and I've been looking at E39 BMW 5 series wagons to drop and put on some nice wheels as I think that would be pretty different and attention grabbing

There's a guy around here who rents e-foils for like $800 for 2 hours and the first time I saw him he was driving a Porsche Cayenne GTS that was lifted with 32" off-road tires pulling a trailer and I noticed just because it was so different.

Main things to have to test e bikes would be a regular volt meter, and a generic motor/ throttle/ controller tester. That tester will also need to have some adapters for the more common plugs used on e bikes.

Lots of cheap " white square" replacement plugs for fixing more generic cheap e bikes. Very often the problem is just in the plugs, and the contacts inside. Like 90% of the time.

More sophisticated, would be a load tester for the batteries. A heating coil or bank of old type floodlights, and a watt meter. This can show you that a battery cannot supply a load anymore. But really, just slap that battery on a different e bike can test that easy too.

I'd be wary of of an ebike "mechanic" without a Fluke digital multi meter.

Good call on a load tester with floodlights. Actually one of the biggest problems I've had with customers bikes now is that sometimes I have to put in a significant amount of "saddle time" in to try and diagnose what they are describing, it's been a few times now that these cheap Chinese cells are sagging so badly that after a few miles the customers trip LVC and it shuts off on them

It would be pretty weird to park a trailer in someone's driveway and ride off on their bike for 45 mins I suppose so the more I can do on the bench the better

Already have a fluke 87 for like 20 years now and will probably get another for this . As I go back and forth between working on bikes , cars, outdoor kitchen/gas stuff, and tanning beds I find that all the shared tools like socket sets etc wind up being a pain and I basically have to have multiples and allocate them to a specific type of work

So many times I would go to work on a tanning bed in another state or something and realize that I left my torx sockets with my car things etc. Probably easier to buy as much dedicated equipment as I can so I can leave it in place always and never get sidetracked and forget tools because I was working around the house or on cars etc. Pretty much the stuff in the trailer never leaves the trailer

Will probably try to keep cost under control by NOT getting anything from the snap-on man this time around

A good security system, SIM chip geo tracking. . .

Also a great point, I live in a fairly safe area and by some freak chance, my car was stolen out of the driveway a few years back. When I say it never happens here, I mean it does but typically it's like a few times a year when it's an acquaintance "borrowing" the car or someone may leave the car running and go into the store. It's definitely relatively low crime but not what it was 15 years ago

Add to that the fact that I plan on unhitching the trailer when I'm not using it and you are definitely 100 percent right and something I hadn't even thought of

Cell service is iffy around here so probably a Wifi hotspot device with a different carrier wouldn't be bad in case I need to pull up schematics or something, maybe google fi or one of the other services that use multiple networks just to minimize dead zones

In my area they steal the truck and trailer or the U haul. Make sure you can track it!