Baby Mullet e-bike conversion.

OK Hive bike fans that didn’t take long to be honest I’ve had the e-bike kit sitting around for a while but needed a couple of bits to finish off the project so here we go. First things first I fitted the post mount Hope front brake, I did take the bike out with just a rear brake a few times but with the 140mm rear rotor it didn’t really stop that well and going down hill was certainly a bit scary and the extra weight and power of the an e-bike it would have been lethal.

A little while ago I posted about the baby mullet conversion on my old race Kona Explosif well today it gets it’s e-bike conversion. Don’t get your hopes up this is not a how to blog post.

There are a few e-bike kit options front or rear hub motors and the Bafang style Mid Drive motors and lots of different powers from legal 250watt speed limited kits to 2000watt unlimited and very illegal kits that a lot of the delivery guys have them but you risk getting them crushed by the police when they have a purge. Then you have all the choice of battery size it’s a total mine field. After a lot of thought I went for a Yose Power 350W rear hub motor and 13Ah battery kit so it’s a little naughty but not ridicules and still speed limited by the controller so you won’t see me wizzing along at stupidly fast speeds and the extra power is more for help on some of the steeper local hills and the price was quite reasonable off eBay. Their after sales is quite good too I lost the keys to the battery and they got a spare set to me really quickly as they have a UK subsidiary.

It’s a neat kit as the controller is in the battery casing so that cuts the wiring clutter down a lot and all the plugs are colour coded so it goes together easily too.

It comes with all the tools needed and a very comprehensive manual.

The wiring harness has fitted waterproof colour coded plugs so you can’t really go wrong, Unlike the kit I fitted for a friend in the Philippines that was all motor bullet connectors so easy to cock it up, wish I’d taken some photos it was a fun set up on a Shwinn Trik.

The 26” wheel needs an e-bike tire as the Michelin x country won’t last with the extra power of an e-bike. Spot the difference.

I run Hope hydraulic brakes so I need to fit motor cut out adaptors as the kit comes with leavers for cable brakes, but that’s an easy modification, just a matter of getting the magnets positioned correctly so the motor cuts when you pull the brake.

The other modification I need to do is a bigger rear disk as the original is only a 140mm but I have a few spares of different size disk sizes in the garage so that’s easy. For a start off it’s 160mm front and rear and see if I need to go up from that. If it needs more brakes the next step will be a 180mm on the front.

I’ll probably remove the bar ends too and get a bit more room on the bars for the display and thumb speed Controller.

Display screen and thumb throttle fitted on the bars it might need a bit of adjustment once I’m riding to get the positions correct but good enough for now .

The battery and carrier bolt to the bottle cage mounts on the down tub and you can remove the battery for charging off the bike if you want to.

The cassette and brake disk fitted to the hub motor. It’s quite a tight fit in the narrow Kona forks scraped the paint a bit so there’s a bit of touching up to do if I can be bothered but we got there eventually.

Finally time to pop the crank off and fit the crank sensor then it’s time to plug in all the cables. But nothing is ever that easy! My crank is an ISIS spline fitting so the PAS sensor that came with the kit won’t fit. Not the end of the world but more delays in getting the project up and running.

So what did I do? Fairly easy fix in the end after a bit of research I ordered a Bafang crank side PAS sensor that fits on the crank side of the bottom bracket so it doesn’t matter what size the bottom bracket axel is. It still required a bit of 3D printing to get it to fit the crank but it works a treat.

There’s a little bit more 3D printing to do to make some cable guides to tidy up the cable runs now every thing is fitted.

Time to bleed the brakes then set and test the magnetic brake cutoff switches with the new smaller magnets much neater.

Controller setting all adjusted to make it legal E-bike finally ready for a test ride 😀