Hello I Have Many ?????

[vkray JJ]

Howdy, from Ga.
I am new and excited about building a EBike! I am 76 years old and need cheap transportation. So why not a electric bike?
Makes sense to me! I have been into cars all of my life I have had bought and sold over 85 cars, since I was 15 years old.
Now looking for a new hobby and I was thinking why not build a EBike?

 

[Mtl_Biker]

Howdy, from Ga.
I am new and excited about building a EBike! I am 76 years old and need cheap transportation. So why not a electric bike?
Makes sense to me! I have been into cars all of my life I have had bought and sold over 85 cars, since I was 15 years old.
Now looking for a new hobby and I was thinking why not build a EBike?

Welcome!

Have you been riding a bike for awhile or are you just going to start with your project? I guess you already have a regular bike that you will be using? Will you be buying some kind of kit or will you be building it entirely on your own? You've looked at the pre-built e-bikes?

Anyway, best of luck with the project!

 

[vkray JJ]

Well, first off no I have not been riding a lot I pulled a muscle a few years ago so I quit, because I could no longer ride, or pedal. No peddling required with a ebike,rt?
I have a UPS Beach bike I bought online I am not real sure if It will work because of the spacing between the forks? I may need to reconsider another type of frame? Like I said many questions. I purchased a kit and am about ready to send it back, because it has a multi speed sprocket on it, but maybe it will fit on the front?
The kit is for a rear wheel install, but maybe I can make it work on the frt? Dont know, can I safely spread the frt forks to fit?

 

[Mtl_Biker]

Well, first off no I have not been riding a lot I pulled a muscle a few years ago so I quit, because I could no longer ride, or pedal. No peddling required with a ebike,rt?
I have a UPS Beach bike I bought online I am not real sure if It will work because of the spacing between the forks? I may need to reconsider another type of frame? Like I said many questions. I purchased a kit and am about ready to send it back, because it has a multi speed sprocket on it, but maybe it will fit on the front?
The kit is for a rear wheel install, but maybe I can make it work on the frt? Dont know, can I safely spread the frt forks to fit?

I really can't help you with your build questions, but did you see there is a dedicated DIY forum here? I'm sure you'd get help and advice if you post there. I have a pre-built e-bike so my knowledge of kits is very limited but I thought you really need to do a lot of checking of the bike you have and comparing different kits to see which would work best.

Good luck!

 

[indianajo]

Welcome to the site.
I converted the cargo bike left with a geared front hub motor kit, as yuba was offering bosch mid drive with 8 speeds and I wanted to pedal unpowered with no drag and wanted the 24 speed version. 3 front sprockets, 32,42,52. I have just worn out the geared hub motor at about 5000 miles & 2.5 years.
You generally can't spread aluminum or carbon forks, as that metal is cast and will fracture. Steel is possible, but cumbersome. I'd say make a trip to your favorite charity resale shop and look for a 18 speed or 21 speed MTB to use your rear hub kit with 7 speed sprocket. The chain & cables will likely be rusted & need replacing. I use modernbike in Iowa for internet parts. Your beach cruiser will likely have 1/4" wide chain, which won't fit on 7 speed sprockets built for 3/16" wide chain. You can measure it, I haven't measured a modern single speed bike.
Motor/wheel/controller/brakehandle/pas pickup kits are generally okay from about anybody on ebay or amazon, but batteries are often junk. I bought two, one from each. Known good battery suppliers are ebikeling, lunabike, ahicks says california ebike is good but I haven't used them. I'm using the luna 17.5 ah battery I have about 5000 miles on now.
At the higher speeds of electric bikes, disk brakes that actually work in the rain are extremely useful. May be worth buying a bike to get them, some electric bikes are down to $800 with tiny batteries. Can't say anything good about the spokes on many of those, lots of complaints of loose & broken ones. but a dt swiss spoke set is about $60 plus hours & hours to install them. My $1500 yubabike left came with good spokes and also cables that don't need adjusting monthly because they stretched.