I have had my '08 Vectrix since July 2008 and so far it has been trouble-free. It is used daily for the commute in to London and back, a daily round-trip of 50 miles on both town and dual carriageway roads. At this time I have done 3,700 miles and there is lots of life left in the tyres, I suspect that they'll easily survive 5,000 miles before reaching their wear limits. But that does not take account of punctures, one of which I sustained on the rear wheel the other week. This was going to be the first bit of work that I have attempted on the Vectrix since I picked it up. I am [very] handy with the tools and so was not at all bothered other than the expense of repair that it was going to cost me.
I have a brief set of photos of the wheel re-fit which can be viewed for reference ..
The first problem was one of how to jack the scooter to get the rear wheel off the floor. It is not such a difficult problem if you have some simple tools, the best place is to use the underbelly of the scooter where the batter packs reside. This strong enough to support the weight.
I used a hydraulic trolley jack (see pix) to raise the Vectrix, but that was too unstable to hold the machine and so I slipped a stand that I had for a KTM trail bike. This was too tall to perform the entire lift, hence the need for the trolley jack. You might get away with a set of Axle Stands and a steel bar instead.
Removing the wheel is reasonably well described in the Vectrix's manual - just take your time and keep everything tidy. I used an air powered torque gun to remove all of the bolts and nuts, retaining them in a castaway baking tray. This prevents accidental loss of bits by kicking them across the garage floor. The powered torque gun makes light work of removing and re-fitting the bolts and nuts.
I took the wheel along to Watling Tyres, a firm that I swear by for their care in what they do. While they were able to perform a mushroom plug repair of the puncture they were unable to re-balance the wheel because of the lack of a hub! They thought that this was going to be a general problem for hub-motored wheels until manufacturers came out with the right tools for tyre fitters. What they did instead was to carefully re-fit the tyre in its original alignment with the wheel itself.
The repair failed within 100 miles. I am not entirely sure why, it could be the small profile of the tyre itself but what seemed odd was that the plugged hole seemed to have been re-punctured. What would be the odds against that? And so I ordered and Watling Tyres fitted a new rear tyre for me.
Between these two events I decided to get myself a suitable jack for the Vectrix, one that would suit other bikes also, but that would act as a stand also. After a bit of searching I found the Biketek Mini Lift Jack which fit the bill perfectly. I bought one on eBay for £70. You can get much more sophisticated and larger stands such as this one from M&P --> The Motorcycle Lift Jack , but I wanted something that I could take around with me if needed. Although similarly priced the M&P unit is more suited for permanent workshop use.
Puncture Prevention?
With all of this hassle in wheel removal, balancing, re-fitting I started to search around for any alternatives, remembering that some time ago I had tried a tyre sealant that prevented punctures. At that time the product caused a constant imbalance in the wheels, worse on the front, and so I never went back to the stuff.
A bit of Googling and a lot of reading brought me to the conclusion that the technology has moved on somewhat and that the best of breed was Ride-On Tyre Sealant - and I bought the Ride-On Tyre Sealant for Motorcycles - Kit" for two wheels for £9.95, which is what the mushroom plug repair cost.
The supplier of Ride-On claims that the product also causes an amount of automatic wheel balancing and does not cause any imbalance. Now for those not in the UK you have to understand that such claims must be true or the company making these claims can find themselves heavily fined by the Trading Standards regulators here. So it was with some confidence that I bought the product and today I installed 6oz of one bottle into the rear wheel.
I can say that there was no imbalance caused to the rear wheel, no evidence of vibration or anything else adverse. In fact, the slight vibration that was there since the new tyre was fitted has now gone - the Ride-On appears to have done its stuff. I can therefore recommend it to others.
I hope you find this of some use whether or not you have had a puncture on that rear wheel yet.
I have a hydraulic floor jack that's supposedly specifically for motorcycles. It's got a wide top and shaped somewhat like the ones you've linked, but it's hydraulic (as I said). To stabilize the bike on the stand I use the same ratcheting tiedown straps that I use to transport it on the trailer. The jack has hook points to connect to one end of the tiedown, and I simply run it up to the handlebars just as if it were on a trailer. You do have to be careful about doing the jack at the right place on the bike or it won't lift up straight.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Great post, thanks!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Great post and excellent pictures. Thanks for posting this. Interesting to see the lug nuts being inverted though. Were they really like that or did it just miss something that you wrote?
Great post! Very helpful, indeed!
Happy Riding to All, Patrix
Now thats interesting! I was careful to refit the lug nuts back the way that they came off. I'm normally quite careful about this stuff and believe that they were taper side out rather than against the wheel as in a car etc. There is no slack in the wheel once it is offered up to the studs, and no play prior to the lug nuts being tightened as you would see in a car wheel. Hmmmm, now you've got me worried :jawdrop: Looking around I can see one or two pix of the rear wheel with the lug nuts as you suggest they should be! Bummer! It wont' take long with the air gun!! Good spot there, thanks very much :)
Wheel Balance
I fitted the anti-puncture compound (Ride-On) into the rear tyre on the weekend and took the Vectrix out for a ride to settle it in and see what the effect was. All good. Now after a couple of days riding around and that commute into work and back I can safely say that Ride-On does nothing to upset the balance of the wheel. Rather, it does actually feel very much smoother than without.
I hope never to have to put Ride-On into productive use, but it is a very comforting feeling knowing that (a) there is some protection and (b) if the worst happens I will at least be able to get home on the machine.
They are definitely the wrong way around! Sorry, I only glanced over your pictures because I have taken the wheel off so many times and know it inside out!
Here is a slide show showing some more detail (click on the running images to stop and see it enlarged):
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Hmm, I can see what I'll be doing this Saturday morning!! :D
You're quite welcome. The main reason that I mentioned it was because I couldn't tell if the part that they mated with had a beveled edge to allow the cone-shaped side to fit in there and tighten it up. It looks like they do in one of your other photos but I couldn't tell for sure.
But it looks like they need to be flipped over, as the slide show in the previous post indicates.
Job done :) I've flipped the lug nuts over and they now look absolutely fine again. What a dolt :O I really still cannot believe I did that :sick: But looking at the wheel when I re-fitted the lug nuts there was no damage done. 8)
Memo to self, take more care next time :)