Rear hub to front

[boyabouttown]

Can a rear hub motor be moved to the front, is it just the physical size that allows or prevents it.

 

[Jonah]

In theory I guess you could but size matters. Rear hub motors are generally 140mm and front 100mm since this is the most common fork width. If it fits I can’t see why it wouldn’t work though.

 

[jwm]

Size and getting it to sit central

John

 

[flecc]

Can a rear hub motor be moved to the front, is it just the physical size that allows or prevents it.

Of course, anything is possible. I've done it the more difficult way round, moving a front hub motor to the rear and the rear wheel to the front. Of course the motor had no freewheel thread, so first I machined off the right hand side of this hub to get the threaded side:


Then I bolted the threaded side piece onto the motor side plate:


And added the freewheel:


Finally I retrued the cassette rear wheel to give a big offset to centre it for duty as the front wheel, here it is:


And here's the completed e-bike in July 2007:

 

[KirstinS]

Blimey Flecc, that's a great bit of engineering and effort

I have neither skill nor time to achieve !

As a general rule, the answer is no really

much easier to sell the rear and buy a front. Or vice versa

(Says the man with three hub motors in the shed which are either in wrong size wheel or wrong end of bike !)

 

[flecc]

Blimey Flecc, that's a great bit of engineering and effort

I have neither skill nor time to achieve !

As a general rule, the answer is no really

much easier to sell the rear and buy a front. Or vice versa

(Says the man with three hub motors in the shed which are either in wrong size wheel or wrong end of bike !)

I haven't got a shed, it was all done in the bedroom of my one bedroom flat. As you say I could have done it the easy way, but I like challenges and hate waste.
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