Nig's ego Weblog

Insurance 2010.

nigsego — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:51:59 +0000

I have just renewed my insurance. Didn’t bother shopping around this year, as Swinton (Carol (I think)) contacted me with a quote & it seemed pretty reasonable. Was quoted £128 + £25 for legal cover.
I turned down the legal cover to keep the cost down as much as possible, but then Carol chucked it in for free, so I have fully comp + legal for £128.
I did check to make sure that they were still aware that my Scoota was modified & they confirmed & accepted.

A new rider.

nigsego — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:54:00 +0000

Welcome to the newest Scoota rider, Paul, he took delivery today. He plans on upgrading to 60 volts very soon. You can follow his progress on his blog. The links on the right hand side. He should be keeping it up to date

A noisey front-end.

nigsego — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:13:23 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I started to notice that after using my front break the throttle was slow to respond. I thought it was down to an electrical fault, maybe the cut-off switch on the front break was playing up. I took it off & had a look, couldn’t find any problems so I gave it a spray of good old WD40 & refitted it. Took the break lever off, cleaned it up, lubricated it & refitted it. None of this made any difference, so I kind of resided with the idea that maybe something was failing within my speed controller.
Now a couple of days ago I started to get an intermittent ‘rubbing’ sound from the front end. The sound got more frequent the higher the speed but was not present at lower speeds. Decided that it was time to strip down the front end.

I started to take the front wheel out & found the spindle bolt was so excessively tight that I needed to stand on the wrench to undo the nut. These nuts should never be that tight! Got the spindle out & found that it had never been greased. Took the break calliper off, these came off quite easily. Noticed that one break pad had worn more than the other, so I took a better look at the calliper. The two pistons had a bit of surface corrosion on them so I cleaned them up with a bit of WD40 & a soft cloth, then gave them a good spray of Wd & pushed them back in & pumped them out etc a couple of times to draw in the fluid. Re-lubricated the sliders & pins & then put it all back together. Also noticed a load of very light scratches on the disc, so I guess that the pads must have picked up some grit & was rubbing on the disc.

I thought that before I put the wheel back, I’d take out the crappy screws holding the front mudguard & replace them with some new bolts. !!!!!!!! There’s a lot to be said about greasing bolts before fitting them! On of them sheared (torqued) off! Had to drill-out the bolt & re-tap the hole.
I urge you all to change these bolts or at least take them all (every bolt & screw you can see) out & put some ‘never-seize’ grease on the threads. This will hopefully save you from having this problem in time of urgent repairs….

Anyway, put it all back together (with fresh grease everywhere) & took it out for a ride….. No more noise & the problem with the throttle response had gone
So…..
The corrosion on the calliper pistons was causing the breaks to stick slightly which was causing the lever to not return correctly & thus causing the poor throttle response due to the cut-out switch staying off until the lever fully returned.
The rubbing noise was caused by debris caught in the pads.

Bare in mind my Scoota has only done 4300 miles, I would suggest that the front end would need servicing at about 3000 miles.

Hope this helps

Battery life.

nigsego — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:45:41 +0000

Hi.
Just a quick update on things.
My Scoota is just coming up for 4000 miles (speedo reading) & I am really impressed with the condition of the batteries.
I am still charging them every day when I get in from work & they normally require a 4 to 5 hour charge. Just recently I have been using the lights for both the journey to & from work, so the re-charge is about 5 to 5.5 hours.
I’ve had absolutely now problems with them yet & they have been in service since September 2008
I feel that they should be good for at least another 6 months & that will be about another 1200 miles.
This, I feel, is worthy of praise to Saiting for producing a good balance of overall performance.
Thinking about the performance I am getting from my lead-acid batteries, I feel I can’t really justify opting for Lithium batteries next time. The price of Lithium batteries is still far too high compared with lead-acid replacements.

Insurance sorted.

nigsego — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:55:04 +0000

Well, as promised here is news regarding my insurance.

I tried 4 companies & out of those only 2 were able to quote for electric scooters. Carol Nash & Bennetts still don’t do electric insurance.

I got my renewal quote from my current provider ‘West Humberstone Agencies Ltd’ (AKA, electric scooter insurance) for £143. I thought that was reasonable, but as I have mentioned before, I wanted to declare the scooter modified.
I got in contact with Adrian Flux & explained what I had done to my scooter. The guy I spoke to was really helpful & seemed very knowledgeable. He said that having the modifications was no problem & there are a few underwriters out there that would be able to help, Aviva being one of them. He quoted me £157, which I thought was also pretty good.
I phoned WHA back & I asked them if they could quote for my modified scooter & they said they could. I was quoted the same price (£143). After requesting that they remove the £12 legal cover I got it for £131. They have now supplied me with a letter stating that they know the scooter is modified & are happy with it being at 72 volts.
My situation is: Aged 35. Full bike licence. 1 years No claims.

Sorted. Paid up & legal.

It’s insurance time again!

nigsego — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:03:51 +0000

Hi, it’s been a while since my last post as I have not really had anything to add, but now it is the dreaded insurance time….
I have found 3 potential companies & will be checking on quotes over the next week or so.
Will post info as & when I have it. Fingers crossed for a sensible quote

72 volt charger now in use.

nigsego — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:58:31 +0000

I have just received my 72v charger & wired it into my enclosure. So I now have a charger to charge all the batteries everyday & another 12v charger to give an extra top-up at the end of the week. This should keep all of the batteries in tip-top condition.

& hey, if anyone wants a 48v or 60v charger, I have them going spare. I would be willing to sell them for £15 each + postage.

On a slightly different note; my Scoota has now done 1600 miles (on the clock) & the motor/batteries are still going strong

The instructions are coming.

nigsego — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:44:56 +0000

The 72 volt conversion instructions are on the way. They should be ready in a few days. Keep an eye on Mike’s site for news.

http://www.kickasscity.com/

At long last we have a 72 volt charger!

nigsego — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:33:13 +0000

Great news for everyone that wants to convert to 72 volts. E-Crazyman has made a 72 volt charger for us. I have ordered mine today, so I should be getting it a bout 10 days.

This should just about complete the list of parts required for a smooth transition to 72 volts.

Sorry to everyone that has been waiting patiently for the details to do the mod. I have not had time to make much head-way due to family comitments. The good news is that Mike has informed me that he is pretty darn close to completing his instructions.

Here is the link for the new charger. I suggest you order one now so it’s ready to use when you do the conversion:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260396669685&ih=016&category=11332&ssPageName=STORE:PROMOBOX:NEWLIST#LIST

Not designed for speed……

nigsego — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:04:41 +0000

Note to one’s self:

Don’t try & take left-hand corners flat out!

I discovered today, to my dismay, that our Scoota’s don’t like being lent too far on the left. The center stand hits the deck with quite a bang!

I guess that it is only a speed thing, as it had never happened before I got the thing over 30mph. Obviously you tend to take corners a bit faster when you have chance.

Twice today I’ve taken corners above 30mph & the stand has ground across the tarmac, sending me slightly off course.

Higher speeds mean more lean in corners – be careful