Photos and thoughts from disassembling my 'new' v11

[Richardo]

I recently acquired a pristine v11 with 150 miles (240km) on it from the FB marketplace. (paid $2100usd in sept 2021, included Clarke pads, in motion power pads, hex pedals, seat)

 To me, part of 'getting to know the wheel' is disassembling and reassembling it. Gives ya a lot to think about and makes a future repair less stressful. 

I followed the excellent videos by Mr. Elwood and Marty for a procedure. Here are some photos of the stuff I though was interesting.

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1. Shot of the main board under the daughter board- this could be useful if you're trying to reassemble, because the positioning of the wires is important. Overall seemed nice, one oddity was that only one side of the daughter board had a conformal coating on it.

I didn't pull this apart any more than it was, but you can see the mosfets all screwed to the cast zinc heatsink/board shell here, at the bottom.⬇️

 

⬇️this connector was under pretty strong tension, due to short wires. there was no way to make it sit at ease.

 

↘️The cable organizer molding is really nice. what a cool part.

 

↘️noticed some scuffing on the motor cable heat shrink before disassembling

↘️ zoomed in you can see it's not actually just scuffed, but compromised.

woah. They really beat this thing up during assembly. looks like the heat shrink did its job though and the insulation of the actual current carrying wires is mostly OK. there were slight nicks in the outer sheath of the yellow wire but not through the inner-insulation. I ended up re-wrapping this all with silicone TPE self-vulcanizing insulation tape.↙️

 

Here is the other bit of poor assembly I saw. view of cable going into hollow motor. Looking at other pics online, it seems like the assembly worker is trying to hit this caulk from the tip of a caulk gun without getting a finger dirty. I got my fingers dirty smearing some RTV brand silicone the voids to make a seal.↙️

 

↘️This is a shot of the bearing protector gasket on my model. 

 

⬇️I wiped some excess (filthy) grease off the perimeter of the gasket for this shot

you can see some clean grease in the center, and the soiled stuff on the outer part of the gasket. The gasket is mostly held on by the grease itself.

When I sealed it up, I put a bead of Park bicycle grease around the perimeter of the gasket. hope that doesn't cause a reaction or something..they shouldn't mix together too much.

I didn't see any identifying marks on the bearing.⬆️
 

⬆️I was wondering how the shock could travel so smoothly through this raceway thing, and suspicious of how it didn't have _any_ grease on it. 

Well the answer is these plastic bushings! they seem to work really well- I didn't put any grease on 'em or monkey around at all. Maybe I would have sprayed some dry teflon on it if I had thought of that at the time.

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Other thoughts: I wanted to open the motor and see all the windings and stuff, so I unscrewed one side. The plate was stuck on more firmly than I could remove with my fingers, so I decided to leave it be- wasn't trying to compromise the water integrity or anything. I tightened the small stainless motor plate screws to 6nm. 

For the axle bolts, I saw a "10" on screw head, and that's in the standard tightening range for a decent m6 bolt, so I tightened them and all the others that looked like 'em to 10nm. Put blue thread locker on everything. put a bit of molybdenum grease on all the aluminum-aluminum threads (mostly stuff to do with the shocks)

 

Overall I'm pleased as punch. Really seems well made. Coming from a mTen3 and electric scooters I'm kind of blown away. All the different beautiful parts on the v11, silicone rubber moulding, custom milled or forged metal pieces. It's really great.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Richardo
forgot a greasy picture

[Forwardnbak]

Nice little post. Well done. 
im at 3000klm on my v11, no problems at all. It is one of the best purchases I have ever made. 

[mrelwood]

Great post, and a well documented disassembly!

41 minutes ago, Richardo said:

 

⬇️this connector was under pretty strong tension, due to short wires. there was no way to make it sit at ease.

If you didn’t yet assemble it back together, I would first check that the left side battery wires go to B1 and C1 connectors, and the right battery wires go to B2 and C2. There have been a few units with cross connected cables.

 If that doesn’t solve the tight cable, most of the wires do slide a bit in the cable organizer molding, so you can just pull the wires carefully, as long as there’s even a bit of leeway on the other side of the molding.

41 minutes ago, Richardo said:

 

↘️noticed some scuffing on the motor cable heat shrink before disassembling

That cable was not at all where it should be! No wonder it got scuffed. It should run at the very edge of the cavity, and go under the small lip next to the battery casing screw that has the red thread locker on it.

I wonder if the previous owner had replaced the motor himself. I haven’t heard of a single unit come assembled like that from the factory.

 

The bearing seals. Besides reducing friction that would probably deform and destroy the seal, another point of the grease is to keep water out. Inmotion has said that they tried several different greases and oils, and that a thicker grease didn’t work too well. I don’t know what the issue was, but I would use a genorous amount of grease that would optimally be almost runny. I sometimes even mix grease and oil myself for some purposes.

 

41 minutes ago, Richardo said:

 

⬆️I was wondering how the shock could travel so smoothly through this raceway thing, and suspicious of how it didn't have _any_ grease on it. 

Well the answer is these plastic bushings!

Not solemly though. Your motor has barely any mileage on it, so the black suspension rails still have their coating intact. Those were the days… Once it wears out, the suspension travel does get sticky when accelerating or even keeping up a faster speed (since they push the plastic sliders harder towards the rails). 

Applying grease on the sliders would account for a short while of the coziest, cushiest and smoothest rides you will ever experience, but it would attract dust and fine sand which would grind through the plating quite fast. After which there isn’t a substance in the universe that you can apply to make it as smooth again for longer than a few dozen miles.

 Wiping the exposed part of the rails clean as often as you can bother would definitely pay off.

 

41 minutes ago, Richardo said:

Other thoughts: I wanted to open the motor and see all the windings and stuff, so I unscrewed one side. The plate was stuck on more firmly than I could remove with my fingers, so I decided to leave it be

Good call. And not because of the water seal (which you obviously have the skills to remake), but since the motor cover is responsible for aligning the rim, it could’ve been a bit laborious to get the rim running perfectly straight again.

 

41 minutes ago, Richardo said:

Put blue thread locker on everything.

Are you absolutely sure that the thread locker you used is safe for plastic? The plastic that KS uses for example gets very brittle when in contact with regular thread locker, and I don’t know if the V11 shell is any different.

 

Btw, I thought the number stamped on the bolts represents the hardness of the metal. I could be wrong though. Either way, be careful with all machine threaded screws or bolts that holds plastic in place. Some of them are oversized and very easy to over tighten and crack the plastic.

I also think that the V11 is the nicest wheel to work on, the parts and how they go together really is well designed. If the V13 will just have a suspension that can endure a heavy rider doing hard core off-roading (and a bit larger battery), I’ll be in heaven. Again.

[Forwardnbak]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

If the V13 will just have a suspension that can endure a heavy rider doing hard core off-roading (and a bit larger battery), I’ll be in heaven. Again.

Is much known about v13? I would like a second wheel as a spare and would happily reinvest in INMOTION. 

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Forwardnbak said:

Is much known about v13?

Absolutely nothing else than it will compete with the big boys, S20 being the closest competitor I’d assume.

2 hours ago, Forwardnbak said:

would happily reinvest in INMOTION. 

Me too. Especially since others’ comfort and riding characteristics have a good bit of catching up to do.

[gon2fast]

6 hours ago, mrelwood said:

If the V13 will just have a suspension that can endure a heavy rider doing hard core off-roading

What are your current psi settings, if you do not mind? I thought that the V11 was a bit cushy under my large frame until I disregarded the vendor's suggested settings. I do admit that the design of the lower shock chambers limit the terrain in which the wheel can be aggressively ridden on (I popped a shock via the valve cap in rocky terrain early on). 

Richardo - thanks for posting as I have a tire change coming up on my V11 and all the visuals I can find are gold.

Edited October 3, 2021 by gon2fast
doh

[mrelwood]

39 minutes ago, gon2fast said:

What are your current psi settings, if you do not mind? I thought that the V11 was a bit cushy under my large frame until I disregarded the vendor's suggested settings.

Yeah, the suggested ones definitely don’t work for everybody. I use 150/60psi for my 103kg (+ gear). This could help you finding your settings:

39 minutes ago, gon2fast said:

I do admit that the design of the lower shock chambers limit the terrain in which the wheel can be aggressively ridden on (I popped a shock via the valve cap in rocky terrain early on).

Oh right, that too. I seem to have accustomed to it, since I only scratched it in the beginning. Though by “endure” I meant against wear, not impacts.

[Richardo]

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Applying grease on the sliders would account for a short while of the coziest, cushiest and smoothest rides you will ever experience, but it would attract dust and fine sand which would grind through the plating quite fast. After which there isn’t a substance in the universe that you can apply to make it as smooth again for longer than a few dozen miles.

Wiping the exposed part of the rails clean as often as you can bother would definitely pay off.

Good point I hadn't thought about the grease attracting road dust. Have you tried spraying yours with teflon? curious how that works on a high mileage wheel.

 

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Are you absolutely sure that the thread locker you used is safe for plastic? The plastic that KS uses for example gets very brittle when in contact with regular thread locker, and I don’t know if the V11 shell is any different.

I should have been more precise- only used thread locker on metal to metal threads. I didn't think there could be a benefit for threadlocker in a plastic connection.

 

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Btw, I thought the number stamped on the bolts represents the hardness of the metal. I could be wrong though. Either way, be careful with all machine threaded screws or bolts that holds plastic in place. Some of them are oversized and very easy to over tighten and crack the plastic.

Also agree here- anything that is a connection meant to hold a plastic in place gets a gentle finger tightness. For 'structural' connections like the ones holding the shock/pedals to the rim I did torque precisely- even without knowing the mfr recommending tightness. You probably already know but for anyone else reading, there are 'standard' tightnesses and 10nm is appropriate for a medium quality m6 

 

[mrelwood]

59 minutes ago, Richardo said:

Have you tried spraying yours with teflon? curious how that works on a high mileage wheel.

With a standard PTFE oil, yes. Same thing, gets wiped off (enough not to feel the benefit anymore) during a single ride. Same thing even with a mixture of PTFE grease and wax, which is what stayed on the best on a separate aluminium bar scratched with a plastic spatula. I guess a smooth metal surface doesn’t have enough crevices for the lubricant to stay in.

59 minutes ago, Richardo said:

only used thread locker on metal to metal threads.

That makes sense.

59 minutes ago, Richardo said:

'standard' tightnesses

I never bother to use a table like that, too many screws and bolts in my life! I trust in my experience to end up with a tightness close enough. Aluminium threads are after all quite different from steel for example.

I had actually ended up with almost 10Nm just going by feel, as I tighten those bolts with a 11Nm e-screwdriver with the torque ratchet at 5/6.