For your BN drives, did you have to cut the shafts of your motors?
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Yeppers.
I’m curious if having motors with shorter shafts (like the ones BN sells with their drives) would reduce chance of loose keyways?
I just got my first set of gear drives (BN) so trying to plan well.
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You thinking because there would be a keyway slot encapsulating the motor key?
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Not entirely sure to be honest. This isn’t the first post I’ve seen about BN drives making some noise, so I’m just trying to understand more before I set up my drives. Looking for preventative measures to avoid any potential problems
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Yes. The BN motors fully contain the key so it can’t fall out. For my other drives with cut motor shafts I poured a shit ton of retaining compound on the key to make sure it never came out
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Yeah. I have the keys open on one end.
A motor with shorter key that is captive may be more robust.
Mind you the motors I had on the Gravel Flux with the BN drives came from BN at the same time but had regular shafts i had to cut
And I too used a ton of the recommended loctite.
But that did not hold up for me.
Unfortunately.
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For the AT drives I put speed on I ha in both sides of the shaft. And for one side I had the idea of dremeling down the key to be level with the shaft. So, now it’s encapsulated by the speed ring as well as butting up against it.
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Sunday also ended up being a bonus day…
It was supposed to rain and be cold…
But it wasn’t all that cold and there were breaks in the rain so I got 30 miles in between the GT and the Gravel Flux (the wet road boards)
A nice 6.5 mile warm up.
Then I went and did 14 miles on the Gravel Flux.
And even rolled down to the gravel banks.
Even hit a bit of the Gravel trails on the way home.
Getting a little dirt on the 4GS drives.
A bit later I took the boys out on the gravel flux back down to the creek.
The Gravel Flux is basically perfect right now. It’s so much fun to ride on road, and it does so well on gravel and grass.
I am getting way more used to the way it turns and feeling tuned into that.
And it kick ass towing. Great torque. Great breaks. Super good control.
And I still can’t believe how quiet it is…
Then I topped off the day with some happy hour riding in front of the house on the GT.
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The Monday after the long break is always a little rough right…
But it got to be really nice here today… Over 50.
Oddly enough today I kinda slacked.
Only 16.6 miles.
I ended up not riding after work.
Don’t think Im going to bundle up and go now…
I rode the GT to warm up at Lunch break and then did 10 miles on the Flux.
That was a nice ride.
And then I did school pick up and it felt kinda cold so made me feel lazy about going out later…
But tomorrow is going to be extra nice.
I got the Omakase and Rally Cat charged up to get my thane on!!!
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I can post a pic later of what I did, but essentially some brass 8mm sleeves on either end that I could cut and file down.
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I found some bearing spacers for 8mm skate axles that will be perfect for this. Great idea Jimmy. Even though those keys are never coming lose with 638, I’ve always been paranoid that one could work its way out eventually. Extremely unlikely, but catastrophic if it ever happened at speed.
Securing the key in the pinion with a spacer loctited on the end of the axle will provide some extra protection (mental or otherwise 
)
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I feel super lucky that I have had keys come loose 3 times now and all just caused noise and didn’t send me flying…
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I think I figured out how this is going to fail:
there you have it 
still better than nothing, I suppose
I’m running this with straight cut pinions, so I have zero concern over this ever failing. Even using the extra loctited spacer is overkill. It’s purely to satisfy my paranoia. If I were using the boardnamics short keyway axles, I wouldn’t bother.
There’s something about the chopped axle with open keyway that whispers in my ear at 30mph “yer gonna die”
AFAIK there have been zero instances of green loctite failures on straight cuts.
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I don’t think folks use Loctite 290 for that
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also the spacer will just hit the wall of the gear box was my other thought to further keep the pinion in
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ok, sure. I have not heard about a single instance of loctite 638/648/680 failing with straight cuts.
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Yeah dude. I really wish I had tried the straight cut.
I expect that is a much more robust set up.
I have helicala now on the Llama. But had straights originally now in an drawer…
I think I will put the straights on here during a cold winter day.
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