I have a quick story to tell: the other night I was showing my wife a picture of a Yamaha XS650 and a red Honda CA160, and I asked her which one she liked best. She said the Honda, but only if it was black. That night I woke up in my sleep and started looking at Craigslist for no particular reason. And then I found it. Nothing short of a small miracle! I've been searching for anything similar for about two years, including the metro area of Portland OR.
I bought it the very next day. $500.
The engine is was seized. Its the typical story: the seller's neighbor's brother left the spark plugs off after it lost spark and he couldn't fix it, and there it sat for over 10 years in the back of a barn. I was able to un-seize it pretty easily but the compression is really bad and the engine would need to be rebuilt:
But that is alright with me because I intend on converting it to EV! "Battery powered." Yes yes yes I know I know I know. I'm certainly not advocating that all old bikes be converted, and there's pros and cons to electric powered vehicles. But I'm building this bike for my wife to ride and this is what we want.
There's many reasons an EV bike will be perfect for her: (1) She hate's smelling like gas and exhaust fumes when riding on the back of my bike. (2) She doesn't know how to use a manual transmission and refuses to learn, I've tried to show her the light many times but she just is not interested. (3) No chance of oil stains on her boots or pant legs. I'm making her sound high maintenance but she's just not into motorcycles, so my hope is if it's clean electric then it will be different.
Gas powered engines are like puppies: they're noisy, annoying, loud, leaky, and need a lot of maintenance. With an electric bike, you'll never need to worry about stale gas, oil changes, timing points, and more. Yes, but the beating, thumping heart of the bike will be missing! And the range will be so low! No arguments from me on those two points, it is what it is.
But that is why I chose a smaller bike, barely larger than a scooter. Ok, it's not that small, but I think it will be small enough. But more importantly it is BEAUTIFUL! Just look at it! It is like a sculpture.
I want this conversion to be like a work of art. I have plans in my mind for a scalloped battery box in place of the seized gas engine. But I'm still working it all out.
Enough rambling.
The bike is in OK shape. Not great, but not the worst I've owned.
The front and rear fenders need a little work with a hammer and dolly:
I'll hang onto the engine just in case the EV plans don't work out. But once they do I will part it out and get it to the guys who need parts. (PM or email me if you are that guy).
I'm still doing the math on all the EV specs. The another problem with EV conversions: its so much freakin math! I would much rather be wrenching! The EV stuff is all very confusing. I've resigned myself to just copying smarter people than myself and so I'm following two builds on youtube. The first one is about an EV conversion using a '69 Honda CA110. And the other one is an EV conversion with a Honda cub scooter. Both guys are using the same hub motor, so it seems to me that I would be wise to do the same. There's also a very handy spreadsheet and accompanying video for hub motor selection:
I'm going to need to build a battery box where the engine is and I want to to match the sculped beauty of the rest of the bike. Here's a mockup of what it could look like:
Here's some of my EV motorcycle inspiration:
Of course the first thing to do was to start stripping it down to the frame. So I built a special table to stand it up on. Would you call this a frame jig? Or a chassis fixture table? Or just a custom motorcycle stand? I don't know but I like it a lot and it will make everything a lot easier and more enjoyable.
Cheers and thanks for reading and watching! If you haven't seen the youtube episode yet, here it is:
Continue Reading:
- Part 1: Converting a '67 Honda CA160 to Electric!
- Part 2: Body Work
- Part 3: Battery Pack
- Part 4: Swing Arm Modifications
- Part 5: The Return of Project Dream-E
- Part 6: The Battery Enclosure
- Part 7: Wiring & Programming the Motor Controller
- Part 8: Final Assembly & Test Driving