Front drive mounting problem

[john sarber]

Mounting a front wheel motor kit on my wife's 3 wheeler , I am looking for a solution to a problem
The axel requires a stem washer to lock into the fork. The bike does not have a slot for the stem washer and when power is applied the wheel comes off the bike.
I hope I clearly explained my problem.
Any suggestions?
Thank you
John

 

[JRA]

What you need is a proper torque arm, info here: https://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/torque-arms.html

 

[indianajo]

I've never owned or repaired a bicycle that didn't have a slot in the fork for the axle to slide in. This goes back to my Mother's 1946 Firestone bike. The days of bending the fork apart to get the axle in ended before that time. The tang on the washer goes in that slot.
I suggest you do in addition need a torque arm. I made mine out of bed frame rail 4" long, cutting two 5/16" holes at one end and connecting them with files to make the flatted oval shape. Wear safety glasses with power tools. Took about 90 minutes. Use mcmaster drills & nicholson files not that imitation stuff from Harbor Freight. Put it on the side without the wires. connect the end of the arm to the strut with a strip of sheet metal with #10 holes drilled into it bent into a U. Hose clamps don't work and neither does that roll of strap with holes from the plumbing supply. 1" wide steel like a box fan case. I use 10-32 x 1 1/4" cap screws and elastic stop nuts for this, but you could alternately use 6 mm x 35 mm. I use stainless hardware from mcmaster.com to avoid rusting up in the rain. The farm supply has the stuff that will rust.

 

[harryS]

The stem washer is mounted so the tab is on the outside of the slot. Sometimes, I've had to carefully file the slot a little deeper so the axle sits a liittle deeper in the dropout.

What's going on here? Is it a bad photo angle, or is the slot a lot wider than your axle? I assume that's a steel fork, but you do need the squared off sides of the axle to fit snugly against the sides to have a chance of keeping it stable.

t

You'll need torque arms or torque plates on both sides, securely fastened to the fork .

This bike uses a dinky motor, but since it's an alloy fork, I have a torque plate on the other side, and this torque arm on this side. It connects to a tapped hole they use for a fender strut.

 

[john sarber]

Thank all of you for your information .
I stopped at a classic car shop and between the 2 of us we reshaped the stem washer for a better fit. Fixed my problem and works great.

 

[harryS]

I copied this picture off a Google search. The washer on the right works well for both front/rear drive kits. One or two of my motor kits came with them.

But, hey, congrats on getting it working!

I might ride off and have my battery fall off my bike, duh, it happens. but I try to make sure my wife's bike is all buttoned up. One think I've done on all the hub nuts is mark them with a sharpie so I can see if the nuts have moved. None of them have moved yet.

I recently changed a tire on a hub motor wheel and when I put it all back and re-tightened everything, I was surprised that the marks still lined up.