Past few days I've mostly been busy making a new protective cover for the motor. The original one which was on it I can't use since the cable shoes won't fit in there and it's definately also not safe to touch which isn't so good for the safety inspection of the RDW. This is the original one.

While making this protective cover I also wanted to try something new again since the epoxy I still had left had already become hard. I got a bottle of acetone en put this together with some pieces of plastic in a jar. Waited a day and then I had liquid plastic. All connections of the different pieces of plastic I just melted together with a soldering gun and filled up all openings with this liquid plastic. While it did need a bit longer to harden than glue or epoxy it has definately become very strong. And it also looks very nice after filing and sanding. I also used this to fill up some small gaps on the battery boxes.

Took me a few days to get the protective cover all done but it eventually turned out pretty good. Here's the part that gets attached to the motor.

Then the cover can go on it.

The cable shoes and rubber isolators I can just put on with a closed cover, so that's pretty nice.

With this protective cover you can't touch anything high voltage anymore, not even from the rear. So this should be good enough for the RDW I hope. But I also think it's better myself and it's also a bit thinner than the original so there's a bit more clearance with the frame.

I also sanded all boxes one last time, so these are also finally all done now. Meanwhile all of the frame parts are with the sandblaster. If everything goes well I can already pick these up tomorrow evening, so it's very exciting. After that everything can be sprayed.

Good news, I finally have everything done for sandblasting. This weekend I worked really hard to get everything to fit and also rounded off all corners and sharp edges.

First some pictures with everything in, the mounting points still weren't made to size here and still no corners rounded off.

And here with everything out, looks pretty nice. And it's also very strong, I'm really happy that I decided to go with 3 mm steel instead of aluminium.

Then I took everything apart again and placed all parts that have to be sandblasted together. There are quite a few parts.

So these are also the last pictures with that ugly glossy white and all those bare spots. Hopefully I can go the sandblaster this coming week already, I'll keep you updated.

Meanwhile I also had some new bushings made of the material POM. The small ones are all for the front swingarms en the 2 big ones for the rear swingarm. These are replacements for the bad rubber bushings (front swingarms) and needle bearings (rear swingarm). POM is very suitable for this, it's very wear resistant and smooth. Many quad bike riders use this material as replacement and are very happy with it. I still don't know myself since I can't place them yet till everything is sprayed.

I also got some new bearings for the front wheels and rear axle of the brand SKF. These will last much longer than the original Chinese ones that were in there.

In the bearing house I also had a slight modification made. The speed sensor of Trail Tech is quite a bit smaller than the original one and also has a different thread (3/8 inch). To be able to mount the sensor in the same spot a bushing was placed in there, works perfectly.

That was it again, hopefully another update soon with a sandblasted frame.

All mounting points have been welded, again thanks to Van Alphen Lasservice. It all went well and it's been done very nicely.

I'm now working on drilling the holes and tapping threads. It's quite tricky to get all the holes aligned properly but it's going pretty good so far. I just still need a few evenings to finish this I think.

I also need quite a lot of bolts again which I'll hopefully have tomorrow. Then I can see if I'm able to succesfully attach everything.
Meanwhile I'm already trying to find a sandblasting company so that all parts of the frame can get sandblasted and then sprayed as soon as possible. But since the construction workers holiday has just started again here it's not really going well. There's a big chance that I won't get this done the coming 3 weeks.

I also received some neoprene shock covers from DirtSkins. Don't really need them just yet but I already got them for when I'm going to rebuild the quad bike. Hopefully the shocks will last a bit longer with these. I also like how they look.

And that's it again, hopefully another update at the end of this week.

This weekend I took the time to take on the frame. There were still some small parts of the old mounting points on there which I had already cut off last year. You can't see anything of them anymore now. I also removed a few other mounting points which aren't needed anymore and took off the paint in the spots where the new mounting points will be. So I really have everything ready now to get it welded, just have to wait a bit till the welder has some time.

Also made the corner profiles already which will be mounted across the frame. These will be carrying and dividing the weight of the battery boxes. It was just tricky to get it all to fit, I really don't have a millimeter to spare anywhere. So I just grinded them out a bit so the frame's tubes fit right in.

But now I can't really do all that much anymore till everything is welded. So I'll have to wait once again.

The less good news first. I wanted to remove the bearings and axle from the bearing house so I can soon place much better bearings of the brand SKF in here instead of the Chinese bearings. This just didn't go so well on one side, a piece of the bearing house broke off and there's a small crack as well. So I can't use this one anymore.

But I did get everything out so at least I know how everything fits together now.

Here's one reason already why I don't want to use these Chinese bearings. Just look at the difference between the 2 bearings, the one on the left has no grease at all in there while these are still new closed bearings. But they're bad quality anyway, these bearings break very quickly. Especially that one without any grease.

Meanwhile I already got a new bearing house. There were also bearings in this already but everything went well removing them this time.

And then the good news. All mounting points for on the frame and the battery boxes are finally done. Was quite a bit of work, especially since I had to make these to size using only a bench vice, hammer and file. But they can all hopefully get welded within a few days now.

The ones for the smallest battery box up front were the hardest because they needed a few corners and a part that's skewed. But they turned out pretty good, definately strong enough for the 2 batteries that are going in there.

I also made the holes in the front fender already with mounting points for the charge plate. Ofcourse I used rivet nuts for this again.

Hopefully another update soon once everything's welded.