The "Cheetah"

I took this picture about a month ago, I have and am spending some serious money on this machine. After taking this picture my charger went out.

The charger was a soniel model 2409, Andrew here on the forum is getting it, sorry Andrew, UPS passes my shop by if I am not there, post office is across the street here, will probably send it this evening.

Very happy with 2 of these at a $100 a pop. The Soneil, a 24 volt 4 amp charger, often went to 30 volts, it got so hot the soneil could'nt control itself. The soneil should, according to its specifications should not have ever gone above 29.4 volts. Exceeding the voltage during charging vents the moisture from sealed agm batteries. The upper limit for my odyssey batteries is 14.7 volts.

The schauer chargers are 12 volt 12 amp, are fan cooled, very well built case compared to the soneil, charge profile tested by myself is very accurate. The schauer is a much better charger than the soneil for the same price. They never exceed 14.5 volts, and are only that high for 5 minutes or so. Soneil took from 3 to 4 hours to charge my pack after a 6 mile ride. The two schauers do it in 1 and 1/2 hours or less.

This next picture covers 3 topics, jackshaft, lights and forks.

My jackshaft went out a week or so ago. I blamed the bearings. Wrong. One was perfect, the other feels good, not perfect, but I've had bearings in this shape go for years. The problem was my jackshaft itself. It measures exactly .625 inches. This keyed shaft goes through the gates pulley, then a bearing, then the chain sprocket, then the opposite bearing. Where the jackshaft rested on the bearings the shaft shrunk to about .622 on the bearing next to the gates pulley and the shaft shrunk to .6234 on the bearing next to the chain sprocket. My Dads' the engineer, I hav'nt shown Him this jackshaft yet, His comments will be posted. My feeling is that the belt is hammering the shaft work hardening it causing this shrinkage. Hopefully this is just cheap jackshaft material, My Dad will be able to steer me into a better solution so that this shrinkage won't happen again.

I got the lights, 2 of each, at Harbour Freight Tools. Both are leds, trailer lights will give me turn, running and brake lights, $13.00 each, seem bright. The yellow light was about $4.00, they have a flashing function, they are brighter than the cateye and the blackburn lights I use as flashers on the front. All are 12 volt automotive lights. The lighting project is time restricted, when I get the time.

Forks. I liked the chili works gordo in the above picture, very strong, springs were not up to the weight of this bike. I took them apart last night. Basic springs. Only one tube has springs. I will upgrade these to handle more weight. 2 ways I can do this. Put a shim in the tube with the spring which will put preload on it, or, add a spring to the empty tube. This fork won't go on the Cheetah, It does not have disk brake capability. The down tubes on the gordo are 37 mm. Very comfortable during braking, they had no flex, just a lot of what is called sticktion. The farther I rode the further down the front end went until I bottomed out.

Forks. I needed more stopping power with the weight I had. So I put rock shox dart 3 forks with hayes mx2 disc brakes. This was a $400.00 dollar upgrade. The dart 3 is not a dual crown fork, down tubes are 27 mm. Lot's of flex, no stiction, lots of dive and not much control over the bounce of my front wheel. Ride qaulity is not as good as with the very cheap gordo. The dart 3 cost $165.00, it is going on my aluminum mongoose when this gets here

Purchased this off of ebay last night. Marzochi 888VF. No external adjustments for dampening or pre-load. Dampening control is by air pressure. Preload is internal, 3 settings, easy to accomplish, just pop off the tube caps. shake the front end till the springs pop out, there are some c clips one adjusts to 3 different locations to adjust the pre load. Yea, shake the front end with 56 lbs of batteries!

Now I need a new front hub for a 20 mm thru axle. They aren't cheap, most are 32 hole, dang, my new rim on the dart is 36 hole. looks like a front hub with spokes and rim will aproach $200.00.