A rare piece of history - Swizzbee

Nealh

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:eek: Swizzbee is off the road for now age is catching up with her a bit now :(, but hope to get her going again.
The left hand side internal hub mechanism has four pawls that catch when the belt drives the bike (and three for the cassette rh side), unfortunately the pawl spring lhs which is thin elasticated spring (much like the Hammerschmidt pawl spring) has been chewed up by the internal drive cogs probably having snapped first.
Firstly I need to try and find a replacement of similar type and then give the whole transmission a through clean in an oil bath to get rid of any small metal spring particles prior to drying and fresh lubing.
The stretch diameter I need is 32mm to go over the pawl body and then sits in the body central groove (approx 28mm) as well as in the pawls central groove.
Having trawled the web it appears this type of retaining spring isn't very common as most freehub pawls use individual pawl springs, a solid wire type spring or snap ring affair.
 
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flecc

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The stretch diameter I need is 32mm to go over the pawl body and then sits in the body central groove as well as in the pawl s groove.
Is it like this Neale?


That's the one in both the first and second generation Panasonic crank units, and the Kalkhoff Impulse units are virtually the same. There's plenty of electrically failed Panasonic units around which will have good pawl parts, though the Kalkhoff ones often broke theirs.

I can't say the exact diameter of the spring.
.
 

Nealh

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Thanks Flecc, fairly similar.
That retaining clip like many is a one piece solid metal spring clip/ C type clip.


After spending a few hours trawling the interweb, it appears I need a garter spring as used on oil seals these are a S/Steel fine elastic seal spring. Very similar as found on suspension forks on the fork stantion seal.
I have found the seal spring on its on at Simply bearing so have ordered one @£1.78 to see if it will do the job, they have a 25mm & 30mm one so hopefully one or the other will have enough stretch to do the job.
A lot of the gear components are Sram so the internal gear parts are probably also Sram with some re-engineering also havng been done, for pawls if I need any will have to look at Sram or poss DTSwiss. One item I haven't been able to source is the caged bearing in the size I need, plenty for head sets but too small in diameter.
I will post some pics in the future when I dismantle again for cleaning and fitting.
 
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Nealh

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Back to A1 working and ticktyboo :).

After spending a day or two trawling the interweb I went for the easy option in the end of just trying rear hub drive searches and was smacked in the face straight away with the answer.
The original design used an already made drive unit the SRAM DUAL DRIVE 11/ 3 X 9 system, which are no longer produced and as of this year Sram no longer make any hub drive /gear units now having ceased all production.
The issue I was experiencing was bearing retainers being worn, internal springs past their sell by date as well as the odd pawl issue. These incidental small parts appear to be hard to find and mostly unavailable.

After looking each evening for the best part of a week on ebay, I found a new unused 3 x 9 dual drive for sale in the UK from a cycle shop delivered to my door for a ton.
Rather then strip, relace and true the rim I decided to just replace all the internals and keep the old hub shell as is.
And blow the crows two more new units have appeared on ebay from German bike shops.

Old internals I removed for cleaning after pawl spring snapped and ceased hub drive up.
The thrust washer far right is cracked and has a hair line on it across the radius also the e-clip is quite weak.
DSCF0131.JPG

Main pawl carrier.
DSCF0134.JPG

Hub internal thru pic, small bearing retainer on Lhs was past it's sell by date.
DSCF0139.JPG
 
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Nealh

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Whilst trawling the interweb I cams across this schematic view of the internal parts from an Aussie web site to confirm that the Dual Drive 11/ 3 x 9 system was exactly what the Swizzbee has, a great find just what the web was designed for an online library.
DSCF0140.JPG


New and old drive unit internals side by side, the newer items above are a bit lighter here and there.
DSCF0149.JPG

I'm tempted to buy another new Dual Drive as future spares to squirrel away.
 
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Nealh

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Swizzbee never seems to be maintenance free having got the hub sorted and running sweetly and no more issues with drive side axle nut keep loosening and at times getting lost as it flies off.

I now have the brushes playing up again, one of the contact wires appears to be a bit faulty causing an intermittent contact, I thought at first it was a mechanical noise then after a bit of investigation nailed it down to a very intermittent electrical contact from the mid mount Heinzman brushed motor.
The brushed motor isn't a traditional axled hub motor but a 130mm dia x 75mm wide in-rider type motor with a brush armature on drive side and a stub axle on the non drive side for the gates belt drive.

Hopefully having trawled AliEx I have found and ordered some 18mm x 6.3mm x 3.1mm brushes which near as a damn match the 6 x 3mm I need, at most I may need to file them a smidge.
 
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Nealh

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Three and a bit weeks on and the brushes arrived from the Aliexpress seller, 15 -20 mins of work this morning and all is well again and the bee is working again.

At first I got no response from the electronics, the 4 step ignition sequence appeared not to be working. When the on button is switched there is a high pitch audible tone and then three single mid pitch tones as you enter the 3 digit start sequence, once the correct sequences is in three quick audible tones are emitted to indicate the bike is good to go. This take about 2 seconds to do.
So thinking about it, I remembered that during the last few weeks I had rerouted the parallel wiring for the rack pack and this led to a false wire contact to the controller. A little fiddle and contact properly restored.
 
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flecc

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Swizzbee never seems to be maintenance free having got the hub sorted and running sweetly and no more issues with drive side axle nut keep loosening and at times getting lost as it flies off.
So as complete a hobby as cycling could ever be! :D
.
 

georgehenry

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Hi Nealth, you commented on an Oxygen Emate city that was you sale for £100 that I told the owner I would happily get on my return from holiday to use as spars for my 2011 Emate City.

I thought you might be interested to know that I did make the effort and picked the bike up, sportingly reminding the owner to remove some lights and a bottle cage that he had left on.

My intention was simple to strip bits off it as required. I left it in the garage a day or two and then got it out to remove a front brake lever to swap over to mine as the brake cut out sensor on mine had been broken while it was locked at a station.

Anyway after I had removed the lever and replaced the throttle and grip I started to look more properly at the bike and began to realize that it was in much better nick than mine and hardly used at all.

There were a few wires that had been disconnected and a missing front light although I found the missing front light with the charger, and the reason he was selling it was that it had a broken spoke in the rear wheel and wanted to free up space in his garage. Anyway I connected up the wires, swapped over the battery from mine and not expecting much turned her on.

I lifted the rear wheel off the deck and gave it a touch of throttle to be rewarded with a gentle wine from the motor and a swiftly spinning rear wheel.

At that I swapped over my seat post and saddle as the bike had come with the original suspension seat post but no saddle and took her for a spin. Blimey she whooshed away powerfully and quietly thrusting me quickly up to an indicated 20mph (must also be de-restricted) up a gentle gradient, and then a bit more coming back with both throttle and pedelec sensors working a treat.

I noticed that she was showing 500 miles on the display and came with hardly used schwalbe marathon puncture proof tyres. I thought goodness me this is an almost unused bike with a broken spoke.

I have a few spar spokes for my bike but when I removed the broken spoke found that mine are too long due to having an earlier less modern motor fitted. Any way while she was upside down I checked and tightened all the spokes in the rear wheel and noted that the wheel was really not that badly out of shape. Actually probably a bit better than the rear wheel on mine.

I then rang Oxygen and explained the position I found myself in and they have said they will post me five replacement spokes free of charge. I think at the very least I will very soon now have two good working order Emate city electric bikes.

I thought you would be amused to hear my tale.
 

Nealh

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A worth while punt for a measly ton.

:rolleyes: Suppose you didn't see an unused swizzbee sitting next to it.

Fortunately at the mo, I have been able to sort out rear hub (sram leisure) and other issues like engineering and brushes.
If ever the Heinzman or controller go then it will be a strip out job of all components and a retro fit of another drive unit, most likely candidate one day if it comes to it will be a GSM without controller @48v and all the gubbins can be fitted in the triangle case as is now.
Which reminds me must get a GSM from Hatti and keep one in the garage as one day they may not be available or maybe something equally better might come along.
 
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Nealh

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Another ride and another issue today :(, disintegrating cassette pawls :eek:.
Only one complete one remaining of four. The fine spring retaining ring/band broke.
DSCF0195.JPG

All repaired and back working again, after 45mins of tinkering. I robbed the pawls and retaining band off the old leisure drive .
 
D

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Just came across this thread while googling "Swizzbee". I have a Swizzbee that I'd like to find a good home for. I bought it new in 2007 and it only covered a few 100 miles before I stopped using it around 2009, since then it's been taking up space in my garage.

The battery won't accept any charge now, the 2 yellow LEDs flash which according to the instructions means that they are too hot or need to be discharged. I suspect that they've gone short circuit. I charged them up a couple of years ago and seem to remember that the front and rear lights didn't work.

Other that that the bike is in excellent condition.

Would anybody be interested in making me an offer for it, I live in east Wiltshire.
 

KirstinS

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Apr 5, 2011
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Just came across this thread while googling "Swizzbee". I have a Swizzbee that I'd like to find a good home for. I bought it new in 2007 and it only covered a few 100 miles before I stopped using it around 2009, since then it's been taking up space in my garage.

The battery won't accept any charge now, the 2 yellow LEDs flash which according to the instructions means that they are too hot or need to be discharged. I suspect that they've gone short circuit. I charged them up a couple of years ago and seem to remember that the front and rear lights didn't work.

Other that that the bike is in excellent condition.

Would anybody be interested in making me an offer for it, I live in east Wiltshire.
Really ? Cripes, do you still have the codes to access ? And an asking price ? My circumstances have changed and I love to re-own a swizbee and go riding with nealh !


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D

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I have the code that you enter when you turn the bike on, it consists of pushing the 3 keys in the right order.

I'd like £250 for it since it's in immaculate condition apart from the dead battery..
 

KirstinS

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I have the code that you enter when you turn the bike on, it consists of pushing the 3 keys in the right order.

I'd like £250 for it since it's in immaculate condition apart from the dead battery..
Let me have a think. Price very fair if it could be actually shown to work... the one I sold worked but had a deterioted battery .

If it can’t be seen working there are other pitfalls. The one which worries most is that it’s shorted and caused other damage. Or that the dealer code will be needed after battery replacement .....and we can’t get them any more

Oh, and what colour ?!


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D

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I'm guessing the batteries are shorted, I haven't measured them. They accepted charge a few years ago but now they don't which points to the batteries rather than anything else being faulty.

I don't think the dealer code would be needed after battery replacement, maybe Neilh can advise.

It's red & black and looks just like your old one in the photo at the beginning of this thread.
 
D

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Update:

I just took the covers off the battery box and measured a total battery voltage of 3.5V ie they are completely discharged. I took the cover off the battery cells and saw that several cells were beginning to leak, which is not surprising since they haven't been used for around 10 years other than receiving 1 or 2 charges.

I cut one of the internal links on the battery chain to isolate the battery and powered the battery box from an external 24V supply. The security code was accepted and I could see and hear the motor starting up after I rotated the pedals, which was very reassuring. The charge indicator LEDs didn't light up but that could be a consequence of using a high capacity DC supply rather than batteries.

As before, the front and back lights didn't function.
 

Nealh

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Kirstin you only need the extra code if you input the 3 digit security code wrongly 10 times so no leaving it where someone can tinker with it.
Disconnecting the battery is fine it won't cause it to brick.

A new battery will need to be 60 - 80a rated at least as the swizzbee can draw some 60amps or so. Jimmy made be a Boston celled 15.9ah 39a one to replace the old pouch celled one and it still sagged terribly so I made a 100a LG HE2 pack and paralleled it with the Boston and sag is now much improved.

I haven't used it since the failure in post #73 but plan to have a little ride on Friday to see how it goes, certain spares are hard to get hold of.
Not really sure how much longer my one will keep going, main issue appear to centre around the Sram dual drive hub which is a bit of a weak link.
 
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