Woosh DWG22 installation, horizontalish dropouts

[chris667]

Hello

I am having a play with this which I ordered on Friday and was delivered on Sunday!

Taking my time to get my head around all of this before I take it all out of the box and actually fit it. Reading everything I can before I do the job!

There is more than one frame I can use so this isn't a dealbreaker at all. But let me ask a question to rule out one of the possible contenders.

On the Woosh website, the golden rule of installation is that the wire must point downwards.

If you try to install the wheel in a semi-horizontal dropout, it would not be pointing downwards like it would with a horizontal dropout. It would still be angled downwards, but facing towards the front wheel.

Does that matter?

Like I say, not a dealbreaker at all, I will just put it in my frame with horizontal dropouts. Andy did say that it wasn't recommended to fit the wheel in a frame with horizontal dropouts, but why?

 

[Woosh]

Bikes with horizontal dropouts need chain tensioners.
The diameter of the motor axle is 12mm (12mm x 10mm), the chain tensioner's ring has 10mm diameter.
You can install the kit and ride without the chain tensioners for a while but you would have to install a new chain tensioner(s) for a permanent installation.

 

[esuark]

hm... I fitted a swx02 to an old steel Raleigh mountain bike with "semi horizontal" drop outs and derailleur gears, probably a 5/10 degree slope off the horizontal. Just did my best to angle the wire slightly down. I`m a pleasure rider and only ride in the rain when caught out. I did 6000 miles with it like that. But the swx02 is now in a different frame with vertical drop outs as I wanted discs brakes because I was wearing the rim away with the caliper brakes. Hope this helps...........

 

[chris667]

I was planning to use chain tensioners with this frame, but on reflection have another frame in better nick I'm going to use for my ebike build. It has horizontal dropouts and I might find a front fork with a disc mount.

Now, the next question. This bike has lovely racks which I would be sad to replace.

Has anyone ever transplanted the battery from the supplied rack to a new rack? I would be able to fabricate mountings for it. Does the battery care which way up it is? I know it's not lead acid but I don't know if there are considerations with water ingress.

 

[Bikes4two]

Has anyone ever transplanted the battery from the supplied rack to a new rack? I would be able to fabricate mountings for it. Does the battery care which way up it is? I know it's not lead acid but I don't know if there are considerations with water ingress.

I fitted a standard rear rack battery to my Tortec pannier rack using 'P' clips screwed into the normal battery pack mounting holes. It was a bit fiddly but do-able if you don't mind the faffing around.

The battery per se doesn't minf which way up it is but you do of course need to check that by mounting the battery in any orientation that water tight integrity is maintained (that's where silicon sealent comes in handy).

 

[saneagle]

For horizontal dropouts, the wire must exit the motor towards the back of the bike, then go downward, and then forwards.

 

[dwvl]

the golden rule of installation is that the wire must point downwards.

Everybody agrees that this is best practice. But... I bought a couple of Raleigh Array e-bikes a few years ago. Both brand new from different shops. And both had the wire exiting the front hub's axle vertically. From memory, all the marketing photographs showed it this way too.

It's been on my to-do list to rework them, but I haven't got round to it. The bikes don't get much use, and seldom in the rain, and have been faultless so far. Just saying...

 

[Sturmey]

There are different versions of the semi-horizontal dropouts. I fitted a rear motor once to the blue 'without hanger' stamped type as pictured below with the cable pointing forward and downwards at 45 degrees.