Vintage bike electric conversion – how to make a descent job of it!

Converting a vintage bike to electric sounds easy but can be really tricky, especially if you want to make a really good job of it!
In this video we take a look at the electric bike conversion options available out there and pro`s/cons and pitfalls to look out for, especially with a vintage bike – rim size, drop out spacings etc. can all be a challenge.
Plus, how to take a bit of care and avoid all of those nasty looking exposed cables held together with cable ties and electrical tape…
Plus of course we can`t just stick an electric bike conversion kit on a ratty old bike so we need to go through the base bike while we are at it…

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Hi guys I’m Dan at vintage fellow. org and today we are going to be converting a vintage bike to an ebike and we’re going to try and do a really good job of it as well uh reason for that is I’ve done a few ebike conversions in the past

I see quite a few of them bombing around the place uh and quite often myself guilty of this as well they can be a bit of a messy job uh you know exposed cables bit of cable ties bit of electrical tape that kind of thing well

We are going to try and go One Step better on this one and try and make a much better job of it uh that was much more befitting of a vintage bike now a couple of things we need to touch on first of all exploding ebike batteries

It is a thing I’ve just done a separate short video on those going through um but the most important thing when you are working on an ebike you’re going to uh obviously get a battery uh hopefully with your complete kit uh and the battery will come with its own charger

Uh and the most important thing is you need to know which charger is for that specific battery and bike that’s where the biggest risk is using the wrong charger on your ebike battery now I’m not going to mess around here I’ve got to do a little bit of paint work in a

Bit easiest way to know I’ve got a bit of the color here I’m just going to spray a bit of the color on my charger and that way I know whenever I see that color it’s to do with this bike and that’s the one for it no problem

Easy um now also legalities now this is going to be a 250 watt pedal assist no license required road legal in the UK and EU uh The Hub motor itself you have to be limited 250 Watts uh it will cut out at 25 km an hour that’s 19.5 mil

Hour okay and that way no license is required now it takes seconds on eBay to find a 700 W Motor 1,000 W Motor a 2,000 W Motor um now they’re not legal for Road use unless you have tax mot an insurance and a correct helmet and gear because it becomes a an electric

Motorbike um don’t mess around there you think no one’s ever going to check your problem comes if you do get checked or say you have an accident you’re involved in a collision with someone and someone checks your ebike uh and it turns out you’ve got a 700 W Motor in the back

You’re open to so many legal problems just don’t do it I’ll be honest with you 250 wats plus the rider that’s more than enough power uh for most vintage bikes and most vintage bike wiers it’s great fun um no need to go more you know if

You are you know a regular rder you’re out of the saddle and you’re pumping out 600 800 watts you’re not likely to have an ebike anyway um so just stick within the legal limits no messing around now when looking uh at doing an ebike conversion start off pick the bike first

Cuz you need to know your rim size uh and whether you’re going for a front or rear hub motor or a um an up a uh a bottom bracket Hub motor now I would advise rear motor is the best way to go you drive you ride through the rear

Wheels the power through the rear wheels you’re steering on the front put the power through the back much much better um this one here now some of you will notice uh this has no uh Tor of France pedigree unlike some of the other bikes in the collection um this is actually my

Wife’s bike um I’ve got it for her she wanted something nicer we’ve got a couple of ebikes already but she wanted something a bit more vintage a bit cooler a bit prettier uh to take out on when we just do local rides together now um so this is a 1980 rally silhouette um

Drop bars um nice step through setup um I quite like the design it’s simple quite pretty it has a few problems uh the mudu guards are Terri and I might change them or cut them down or color them in a moment uh it needs a really good going through obviously uh the

Super comfortable electrical tape bar tape isn’t really up to scratch um and there’s a few things need to be changed the saddle’s horrible uh the paint needs Tiding up which we’ll come on to in a moment a new lines new cables all that kind of stuff interesting thing on here

Though has shimano’s five-speed positron that’s a great name batron gear change system uh so that’s one of the first indexing systems on five-speed uh very very useful to be fair but before we get carried away and think we can strap this to our campanello 5 speed no um they

Shimano actually built into the rear deria uh and they did something funky up front as well so you need the whole system so generally just leave it on a bike it comes with um but on this kind of setup absolutely perfect I kind of like the vineman centerpull brakes as

Well nice and vintage this is going to clean up and tidy up really well um now uh The Hub motor I went with uh is this one here it’s a regular kit available um on eBay 250 W rear hub motor now one thing you do need to check

Is your spacing on your rear dropouts uh because a lot of these are set up for much more modern uh bikes uh which have a much wider uh rear Dropout spacing uh this one should match on that one it is black at the moment I could not get

Silver so I know I’m just going to have to spray this silver cuz I can’t handle this kind of black on an old bike like this so we’re going to spray this silver and stick with the silver steam um but in the meantime I’m going to pull this

Apart clean it all up see how I can tidy up the paint and then get going on the ebike conversion okay some good news uh a bit of progress we’ve got the bike fairly stripped down uh the rear hub motor is in place just to tri fit make sure that

We haven’t got any issues uh with regards to fouling or anything like that I’ve got to play around with it a little bit it’s a little bit tight but it is in there uh and we are not fouling um I’ve also got to just tidy up this paint um

Now um there’s a couple of things I’ve noticed the first off I can’t get a paint match for this it’s some kind of strange turquoisey color and I have failed to get a paint match so what I’m going to do I’m going to clean the frame

Up and then I’m going to coat it in a green PE that will cover up some of the worst of the problems and then I’ll clear coat it after that um I’m still deliberating black wheels or silver Wheels not quite sure at the moment we’ll have to wait and see I quite like

This on here now I’ve see it on here but we’ll uh we’ll make a decision a little later on meantime I’ve got to get the cranks off uh because you have to put a crank sensor on there for it to know that the pedals are spinning uh to allow

The motor to assist great so the bike is now pretty much fully stripped I’ve cleaned up the uh the frame as best as possible um to be fair it is definitely a candidate for a full paint but that’s not going to happen so um I couldn’t I

Completely failed to match this um kind of light turquoisey color that rally have used um so I’m going to go over the top of it uh with a bit of green pearl try and cover up some of the worst areas of um bashing um and then give it a

Clear coat over the top um just to kind of make it shiny I’m also going to take the uh mud guard into a much nicer a darker turquoise so this should contrast quite nicely um now one thing I would note um this is one of the much vaulted

Nottingham rally um uh bikes from their Nottingham U manufacturing process and um yeah I mean it’s okay um it’s certainly not Italian you can tell that the brazing is okay I mean it’s not going to win any awards it’s not going to let go but not fantastic and the

Paint there’s just not a lot of it um I doubt even if it’s actually um had under coat on here it looks like it’s a one coat and a clear coat over the top really isn’t a lot of paint on here um which you know I expected better from

Something out of knocking them but it doesc they were knocking these things out back in the day so there we go but um quick bit of paint and then we’ll be back in here uh tomorrow morning desite appearances a bit of progress has been made the frame has been cleaned up put

Back together um I’ve Tri fitted um a lot of the electric components the hub rear hub motor is on there this stuff here i’ had to make up a few brackets but don’t worry this is the final fittings just going to show you how this actually fits together uh you got a

Controller unit here um don’t be put off uh by the number of wires everything is nicely colorcoded um and has a different fitting for each component so it really is pretty straightforward to put this together and I’m just going to try now I’d always advise this give it a quick

Um trial fit before you go ahead and finally finish everything off but you should find that most of this stuff um obviously comes with half decent in instructions but most of this stuff will only fit together um in a certain way um which is quite handy and we just connect

Up uh the battery here battery is off and connect that up there okay so let’s see if we can make some magic happen power on at the battery then all I have to do is just turn that on there that’s our little power display and battery display and hopefully um by turning

This there we go it all works nicely the electric motor Cuts in cuts off um so now process is pretty simple I’m going to get the rest of the bike back together strip these bits off again before putting them back on really nicely um but’s see how it

Goes so we’re pretty much there now um it’s all together I’ve still got a few parts to swap in swap out I don’t uh like um galvanized um spoke so that’s going to get swapped out for a new aluminium wheel it’s on order but it’s not here yet um it’s all running it’s

All ready to go I’m going to take it out for a quick Shakedown right um very little exposed cabling the only little bit we got is just along here um which I’m going to tidy up a little bit more a bit later on and everything electronic wise is inside this rather cool saddle

Bag and this is actually a motorbike tool wall um which is just long enough to fit the battery in there had to adjust it a little bit I’m going to do a little bit of uh just uh tidying up or or where I had to cut through it a few

Times for the onoff and the charging bits um and uh yeah got the um on off nicely hidden away just here as well for cycling through the power and turning on and off uh all pretty neat um so going to get out there see how it go well that’s all going pretty smoothly

Um the electric motors cutting in and out nicely on the pedal assist and generally yeah all’s good um so I’m going to just head on back in now um tidy up a few bits and Bobs but I think we is wiing great great but I think I’m

Going to relocate the battery pack here onto a luggage rack on the back I think that’ll be neat in a better position I was just starting to catch my thighs on it slightly um so that will be a better thing uh to do there the rest of the

Bike is great still got to change out this front wheel and tire and do a few little tweaks but other than that it’s going really good um I hope you enjoyed that video I hope you found it useful and if you are planning on doing an

Ebike conversion it might give you a few tips to help you along the way and do a nice job anyway uh do like and subscribe for anything else that’s cool to do with vintage bikes thanks a lot