You don't have to wait any longer, I will now show what the quad bike looks like after working on it for almost 2,5 years. I'm really happy that I chose these colors, everything matches really good and it just looks really great. When I started this project I did have an idea of how I wanted it but it's become even better than I expected. Well, here it is. :)

Ofcourse it's nice that it all looks so good but what's more important is that it did really good again during the third test ride yesterday. This time I went to the industrial area again where my sister works, there's a nice long road there with a dead end so there's not much traffic. I've only tested at high speed now, mainly to see if the motor would get as warm again. This past week I've ran the motor for 12,5 hours at 1000 RPM so the brushes should be seated by now.

But unfortunately it already got too warm again (90 degrees celsius) just after going up and down the road twice in Sport mode. Meanwhile I did reach a new top speed of 84,7 km/h (52,6 mph) though. And it should be able to go a little faster. I think 88-90 km/h (54-56 mph) should be possible. Which is good as that's exactly the speed I had in mind when I selected the sprockets. It rides a lot better as well now, it's fitted with 4 new tyres (Toyo Proxes T1-R) and the wheels have been balanced. You can really notice the difference is at high speed.

After the motor got so warm I only still tested on Eco mode. Was a bit less fun but necessary to see if the motor would still get warm with just half the power. This is also the nominal power which the motor should be able to run at continuously. While it did take a bit longer it unfortunately still got to 85 degrees celsius after going up and down the road 6 times. So something is not right and I already have a few ideas what could be causing it. I'll look into this in the coming days.

Another problem is that the gauge which shows me voltage and current has broken for the second time. And not even during the test ride but just here at home while I was charging the quad bike a bit. I don't really have any faith in it anymore so I'll be replacing it with a different one. I'll just have to take a few fenders off again but this just needs to work properly for the road approval test.

But for the rest I'm very satisfied, the quad bike is working just fine and on Sport mode it's a real pleasure to ride on it. Ofcourse I made another video again so you can see it all as well. :)

Just a few more modifications and then on to the RDW. ;)

Very good news today, the quad bike is finally completely built up. You still have to wait to see what it looks like right now though, I'll show this on Sunday. Tomorrow I'll probably go out for the last test ride before I go to the RDW with it. I'll make another video again. :)

But as promised I'll already show you a few little details. ;)

The quad bike has really become very beautiful, can hardly wait to share it with you all. Just a little more patience. :)

Just a quick update after the weekend. Made the quad bike a bit lighter for now, the wheels had to go off. You might be wondering why but you'll see within a few days. ;)

Placed the last few wire hoses around the orange wires. Looks pretty nice now, it just makes the wires even more stiff. But it's not really a problem. As you might be able to see the motor is running here. I'm busy seating the brushes so I can see if this will lower the temperature. For this I'm letting the motor run at 1000 RPM for about 12 hours. I'm just at 7 hours now so it'll still take a while.

Unfortunately I'll have to modify the fenders a bit in a few places. Here where the 2 wires cross eachother I had to bend the fender a bit so they still fit. I also expect that I have to modify the rear mudguard a bit since the wires to the motor are in place there.

I'm really working on the last few things now before the fenders can go on. This coming Saturday I'll probably go testing for the last time and I hope to have the quad bike completely finished by then. I'm really curious myself what it'll look like. :) To make it a bit more fun for you as well I'll only show this all after the testing. ;) I might show a few little things this Friday but the pictures of the end result will come some time this weekend.

I continued again solving the problems that I still had.

I was able to place the temperature sensor of Trailtech in the motor, attached it with JB Weld, will be stuck on there forever. Also tested it already and it seems to work well. Will find out on the next test ride if it really works properly.

I tightened all of the nuts in the motor again and added Loctite inbetween. Then I placed another nut on all of the nuts that are holding the connection points of the motor and the carbon brushes, again with Loctite. I don't really expect this to come loose again. Also lengthened the wires for the temperature sensor.

After that I placed the motor back on the quad bike again and connected the orange wires in a better way. They have a lot more play now with suspension travel of the rear swingarm, should be almost no pressure anymore on the connection points of the motor.

I noticed that there were big sparks between the contacts of the small 12 V relays when disengaging the contactors. I used some diodes for this, the contactors open a bit slower now but at least there are no more sparks anymore in the relays. Don't want to keep replacing the relays when they break.

Also added a capacitor and resistor so the contactor between the battery packs uses less power, now it doesn't get so warm anymore.

On the contactors for forward and reverse I only used the diodes since these won't be engaged for such a long time, heat won't be an issue here.

I've now fixed all of the problems that I ran into. Hopefully there won't be more coming soon since I really want to go the RDW this coming month for the road approval test. But before I go there I want to test at least once more. Tomorrow the weather would be nice and the quad bike is rideable again so I already charged the batteries a bit. ;)

Apparently I hadn't found all problems yet that arised after the test ride. I'm glad I found them now though or the next test ride probably wouldn't have gone so well. For pretty much all of the problems I had to buy these few things.

A few bolts of the front swingarms had come loose. I didn't put any Loctite on them just yet since I wasn't sure how tight they should be. I suddenly saw that there was some space inbetween, that's never good. So I loosened them all, put some Loctite inbetween and tightened them again. Should not come loose anymore now unless I really want to myself.

On the rear something also came loose, the 2 big nuts that keep the sprocket adapter stuck to the rear axle. Because of this the sprocket adapter was ale to move freely on the axle. I did already tighten this with blue Loctite inbetween but apparently that was not strong enough for the forces it has to endure. Also noticed that there was some play between the sprocket adapter and the axle. So I first used Loctite Quick Metal to fill up the space. Then I used red Loctite again to tighten the nuts. This should also not come loose anymore.

After that I continued again with the orange wire hoses. It's pretty hard with these thicker wires, especially the bends. It also still barely fits between the mounts.

On the side of the controller I already placed the RFI filters to reduce noise, also neccessary again for the road approval test at the RDW.

While I was busy with the wire hoses on the wires that go to the motor I suddenly discovered a very big problem. I noticed that there was some play on the connection points of the motor. I immediately took off the protective cover to see what was going on. To my surprise I saw that literally all of the nuts inside were loose. So the connections to the carbon brushes were also all loose. This is something that should never happen, If I would've pushed full power through the motor something would've certainly gone wrong. You can't really see it on the picture but really all of these nuts were loose.

The cause of this is very simple, it's because of the stiff orange wires that didn't have enough space during suspension travel of the rear swingarm. Will have to completely change this because like this there will be too much pressure on the connection points of the motor. I'm first trying to place the wires in a straighter line to the connection points and not all the way through the frame anymore. I will also tighten all of the nuts with Loctite so these hopefully never come loose again.

But ofcourse I couldn't easily reach it anymore so unfortunately I had to take the motor off the quad bike once again. Thankfully this is still pretty easy to do, I really only have to jack it up and remove the suspension. Can just take out the motor together with the motor plate after that.

Since I have the motor out now anyway I also checked if I could replace the temperature sensor with the one from Trailtech. That way I can be sure that I get to see the right temperature on my display. I'm just not really sure yet how I'm going to attach it and if I can even use this sensor this way. Will have to contact the supplier of the motor again for this.

I hope that these were the last few problems for now. It's not really fun to discover these things knowing that the quad bike is almost all finished. But on the other hand it's definately better to see it now than when it's too late.