Mini Disaster

[Anthonyexmouth]

ok, riding home today and the back wheel decided to have a disagreement with the drop outs. what followed was a lot of grinding and then walking home the 5 miles.
now im not saying it was my fault, but the person who looks after my bike hasnt checked the nuts since the conversion nearly 400 miles ago.
is there any benefit to swapping the steel nuts for stainless nyloc nuts, or is there a better solution?

 

[anotherkiwi]

Bad luck! My nuts stayed tight for 3600 km without much done other than torquing them up as hard as I could. The wheel was off twice in that time IIRC.

 

[danielrlee]

TBH, nylock nuts won't make much difference. You might want to try NordLock washers though if your nuts refuse to stay tight. I used to suffer the same running 80A + regenerative braking, but NordLocks solved it.

You should also be using a torque arm, preferably two.

 

[Nealh]

The mini disaster in part was probably due to the initial axle fitting. When fitting the axle needs to sit deep and snug enough to prevent play, also the lugs of the ARW's need to sit in nicely ( hence why drop outs need deepening). On top of this a TA is required.
I 've not had a axle /dropout issue with my 3 hubs on front or rear.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Just deciding on the torque arms to buy. Axel sits nicely and arw fits well too. I'll knock out 40 miles tomorrow and check the nuts.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I've never known the normal 12mm flanged nuts come loose with a rear motor if they're done up tight. Torque arms always help, but are normally unnecessary for 250w motors.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

I do think it was mainly user error in not checking after a few miles when I first installed it. But thought I'd check to see if there was anything worth doing to prevent it happening again.

 

[Danidl]

Swarf, a grain of sand or just a washer off centre could cause the problem.. you could have tightened everything fine but just one of these things would provide a latent fault.
Different event same probable cause. In my college some years ago we built a suite of computer labs and everything was fine for a year.. then one Friday , one class was ending before the one in the adjacent room. As computers got switched off, the remaining ones started smoking, the monitor screens plastics melting , plastics in the light fittings started dripping... Meanwhile the computers in the other lab were experiencing drop outs and brownouts..
Cause. A washer in the local power distribution board of the three phase supply, had loosened , removing the return on the star. and the voltages rose on the less loaded phase...

 

[topographer]

computers got switched off, the remaining ones started smoking, the monitor screens plastics melting , plastics in the light fittings started dripping... Meanwhile the computers in the other lab were experiencing drop outs and brownouts..

I bet the people using the melting monitors were experiencing drop outs and brownouts as well.

 

[Danidl]

I bet the people using the melting monitors were experiencing drop outs and brownouts as well.

No their voltage was getting higher and higher until the fuses popped and power supplies gave up the ghost..which made it worse on the fewer remaining ones.. basically a cascade event and all due to a loose washer.