Upgrading Shimano Acera on A2B Kuo+

[len_m]

Howdy.
This 7-speed Acera was never perfect, and now it's out of alignment again and making noises and instead of adjusting it I think I am ready for an upgrade.
A few questions, would appreciate any suggestions.
First of all what brand/model to get? Don't want anything too expensive, something decent for the money should suffice.. don't mind buying used.
Is it possible to scale down to 3 or 4 gears, or those sets don't exist in nature? The motor is in the rear wheel, so can't use internal hub.
I am moderately handy, worth doing it myself or better leave it to the pros?
Thanks!

 

[indianajo]

The 7/32" wide chain may not fit 3 or 4 sprocket freewheels. I wore out a 5 speed freewheel which has 1/8" sprockets and was never able to find a 5 speed sprocket again. Had to scrap the bike. Chain was thinned out with the transition to 6 speed freewheels, 18 speed MTB's. Getting a freewheel off the motor may not be doable. I have the proper park tool, and have never been able to get one off. I salvaged some wheels with 5 speed freewheels for the 15 speed bike, was never able to get them off.
You won't have room to install an 8 speed freewheel. I bought some and they were all too wide to fit in my dropout. 6 speed freewheels from shimano had a 5/16" thick shaft, which broke under my enormous 180 lb body. No I don't jump curbs, rocks, or picnic tables. The 7 speed shimano at least has a 3/8 diameter shaft. The big gotcha!, the 7 speed inner race is held in place by a ferrule from the outside. Or not held, I should say. My inner race backed off and dropped the balls on the road. Fortunately I only had to push the bike 3 miles home. Sometimes I get 30 miles out, where there is no cell phone service.
To repair the 7 speed axle I made a 3/8"x26 nut and locked it against the inner race, by counter rotating until tight. Hard as **** to buy a 3/8"x26 nut, thebikeshopstore.com kept shipping me bags of random hex shaped junk. They gave me my money back but that didn't fix the bike. I ended up drilling out a 5/16" nut and using a $28 tap from victornet.com . Which has now been stolen, I bet the fence has a good time selling that one!
I bought a geared front hub motor which allowed me to ditch the 7 speed freewheel on the rear DD motor and go back to the 8 speed sprocket cluster that came with my bike originally. IMHO SRAM shifters & takeups that the yubabike originally had were more precise than shimano cost cutter line. The 8 speed cluster & axle is shimano, and has been no trouble in >10000 miles. Shimano makes some good parts, just not the ones that are installed on $220 grocery store bikes. Most of those $220 bikes are ridden 20 miles then left out in the rain to rust by kids who really wanted a video game.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Howdy.
This a btter shifter and cable and housing are was never perfect, and now it's out of alignment again and making noises and instead of adjusting it I think I am ready for an upgrade.
A few questions, would appreciate any suggestions.
First of all what brand/model to get? Don't want anything too expensive, something decent for the money should suffice.. don't mind buying used.
Is it possible to scale down to 3 or 4 gears, or those sets don't exist in nature? The motor is in the rear wheel, so can't use internal hub.
I am moderately handy, worth doing it myself or better leave it to the pros?
Thanks!

the problem is the 7 speed. its like only out there for the cheap e bikes. so there are no upgrades. the fist thing would be to buy a good quality housing and cable. you may need a new derailer but who knows?
a new shifter and high quality cable and housing may be what you need. https://www.amazon.com/SHIMANO-Altu...81315210&sprefix=7-speed+Acera,aps,139&sr=8-5

 

[len_m]

those are some wild stories, thx indianajo! i'd much rather not do anything as remotely complicated as you're describing, just need a reliable simple mechanism to shift from 1 to 3 or 4 and enjoy the ride. but alas - seems like i'm stuck with 7 minimum, AND it's low end! what's up with all the love for many gears?.. most people don't live in San Francisco...
good idea, fooferdoggie, thx, i'll start with shifter and cable, see where they take me.

 

[fooferdoggie]

those are some wild stories, thx indianajo! i'd much rather not do anything as remotely complicated as you're describing, just need a reliable simple mechanism to shift from 1 to 3 or 4 and enjoy the ride. but alas - seems like i'm stuck with 7 minimum, AND it's low end! what's up with all the love for many gears?.. most people don't live in San Francisco...
good idea, fooferdoggie, thx, i'll start with shifter and cable, see where they take me.

to save money take the shifter housing off and take it to a shop so they can cut you a piece. shimano or jagewire are good. the right cutter is needed to cut it well.

 

[indianajo]

99% of 3 speed rears are IGH, or internal gear hub. Sturmey Archer used to make a good one, I had one for 30 years then a burglar stole it. S-A is now a name of Sun of taiwan. I bought a 8 speed IGH from S-A in 2017, the S80. It was ****. The shifter pawl ring was soft plastic and started popping out the cable end fitting every mile at ~500 miles. Back to derailleur. I'm trying to install a 8 speed shimano alfine S7000 IGH now, 2 orders and I still don't have a complete kit. The shifter arm won't take a standard shifter cable, there is apparently something else I am supposed to order. If Shimano tries to force me into a thumb shifter again, I'm binning the IGH and broadcasting a million bad reviews. I ordered the 160mm brake disk for it; there is nothing to hold it on. There is a circlip, but there is no groove in the housing for it.
Problem with the 8 speed derailleur, my bike is 6" longer than normal and the extra cable length prevents the spring on the takeup from up-shifting. Too much friction. I haven't figured a way to put slick stainless cable in the SRAM twist shifter I am using. Shimano thumb shifter on the 7 speed MTB grew a 10 cm diameter x 1 cm thick cyst over my right thumb joint. Went right away when I converted to twist shifter.

 

[len_m]

Loved Sturmey-Archer on my old regular bike, but alas it's not doing well lately.. next project.
Here are some pics of what I'm dealing with on ebike, let me know if you spot any issues pls.
Maybe the problem is sharp angle where the cable leaves the shifter?
You can tell how good mechanic is by looking at cables - (paraphrasing) Sheldon Brown...