TorqueBoards Direct Drive Motor Kit

Yeah there is minimal room to move (blue mark) as their is a lip inside the can. The yellow is where the movement happens. Their is a round flat but that the big bearing push’s you to, that can slide out with (yellow) movement and touch the can just near the magnets.
After what I have done I will still shim the wheel bearings to the axel as I thing you said earlier, just to relieve any axial load

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Oof yeah I get it now. Funny because some early models had the circlip on the inside, that maybe would prevent it if it had both.

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@Kram720 @jindra guys this is super helpful.

Unfortunately I have over tightened the TB DD causing - I think the bearing to move inside and rub on the can or stator causing the grinding noise.

I think I have done this on 1 if not 2 motors on my 4WD build.

Once I’ve completed my battery can I message you guys on a how to do this for dummies lol. I kinda bought DD because I’m not the best with tools etc however I do like electrics and battery building. But long story short once I get onto the next stage of my build would greatly appreciate any help fixing my drives. :blush:

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This was probably mentioned earlier here or maybe it was elsewhere…

I had grinding and high friction on my drives at some point. It might be worth checking since it’s an easy kill: pop off the wheel adapter and check for signs of a circular indentation the shape of the small motor bearing on the inside cutout of the wheel adapter- signs of metal shavings. The small motor bearing under the wheel adapter naturally protrudes out a bit to align with the OD of the wheel adapter, and it’s prone to backing out and causing issues. The face of the adapter just offset from the bearing shields has no step on it to prevent the bearing’s shield or inner race grinding away at the wheel adapter.

I printed a 1 layer, 1 wall thick shim made out of Nylon on my 3D printer the diameter of the small motor bearings outer race… and shimmed that between the motor bearing and wheel adapter- now that small motor bearing no longer can back out like it wants to, preventing it from shaving the crap out of the inside of my wheel adapter or causing any friction.

Before this, if I tightened my wheels down at all, the motor was veeerrryyyy difficult to turn with scraping sound/feeling. Now, (with properly spaced wheel spacers and speed rings ofc) I can crank down the axle lock nut hard and free-spin the wheels/motors without any additional friction in the setup.

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We’re here so post some vids and pics when you’re ready so we can deep dive into that motors ass

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Yes, that defo sounds like it. I bought my drives second hand and they were fine but unfortunately didn’t read until after tightening too much that this can happen.

I haven’t yet run the motors as still on the battery so kinda wanted to nip the problem in the bud before setting up my unitys lol.

@jindra thanks man I defo will have to when I get onto it appreciate it.

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The 4 motors I have played with that bearing was pretty well seated, but the shaft coming out inside that bearing would come out towards the adapter

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I’m also having issues with my DD setup from day one. There’s a strange noise coming from one of the motors and it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard from everyone else’s issue video clips. The noise is intermittent and hard to reproduce on the bench, but I’ve got two clips where it’s apparent. It has gotten significantly worse in the 8 miles total I’ve ridden the board. I emailed Dex 3 days ago and no response so far, but it sounds like it could be a good while before I hear anything so I figured I’d post it here.


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Have you tried different wheels or tried loosening the nut a tiny bit?

Any chance it’s a bearing?

That 2nd video sounds like a demon from hell oh lord

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It could be a bearing because that motor spins down slightly faster than the other one. I tried loosening the nut and it spun down at the same speed, which leads me to believe the nut isn’t causing anything to contact. Should I loosen the nut and try and push the wheel away from the can when I do so?

Personally I’d switch one wheel onto the other side to eliminate possibility of an improperly installed wheel bearing first, since that is really easy

Motors don’t always spin down exactly the same as each other but it should be close

I had this same sound when I got mine. STOP riding, you need to either regrease the main motor bearings by taking the shields off and adding more or cleaning it out and adding more. You can remove the back clip off with pliers if you can’t fork the back shield off.

Maybe check the wheel adapter for scraping in case the smaller motor bearing has been scraping it before assuming it’s bearings. This sound though completely resembles bearings that have spun too fast with too little lubrication.

Look at videos on how to remove bearing shields and you need to repack the bearings. Mine did this exact shit but now are amazingly smooth. Buy fully synthetic grease from your hardware store.

Also triple check your spacing and if you need to add speed washers on the Inside of the wheel.

You have to do both bearings, the big one pictured in my post and this small one under the wheel adapter. I don’t know which one is the problematic one but both had similar grease jobs:

Also if you’ve already ridden miles with this noise, have a good look where you maybe have excessive wear which may require a good cleaning to spot. You might still be ok but find the source of the noise before riding more. If you’re not comfortable with this or don’t know anyone knowledgeable you should talk to TB support.

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Adding grease to the motor bearings seemed to help, but the noise isn’t fully gone. I’m not sure if I need to add more grease or what. It’s definitely the bearing closest to the hanger making the noise.

There’s no visible wear to the wheel adapter or bearing behind it so I don’t think they’ve contacted at any point.

Here’s a video of what it sounds like with grease in it:

How is the free spin on both wheels? They don’t seem to keep moving too much after you release throttle, are you sure you haven’t over tightened?

You removed the shield when you added grease? Try backing the wheel nuts out a bit and see if that releases the binding on the wheels. You might have to add speed washers behind the wheel. Double check the big circlip too, it could be scraping along the edge.

I’d call this pretty close to ideal sounding and freespin, the grease slowed them a bit, but broke in after a few miles.

The same noise occurs without the wheel even mounted. The circlip moves with the outer race and the shield, so there’s nothing for it to scrape against. I did remove the shields when greasing the bearings and used Castrol PyroPlex Protection ES, which is a lithium grease.

Ok when I regreased I went a bit nuts. I used orange cleaner and a toothbrush to srcrub out what would go then I flushed with alcohol, then used compressed air to push remaining old grease out, turned the motor by hand a bit to free up extra grease/shavings and repeated this cycle until I felt the bearing was completely dry and clean. This took about 30min per motor. Then I packed each dimple on that retaining/spacing ring with grease, turned the motor by hand back and forth a bunch then packed each dimple with grease again. After this I put the shield back on and motors were happy.

I don’t know if this will fix your issue but my stuff sounded exactly the same and completely went away after I did this process. Maybe I was lucky. It depends if you have some permanent damage or something else wierd but I don’t think so.

The fact that it got better means you’re on the right track? :sweat_smile:

What if you have that problem above where you have to smack the front center like @Kram720 to release binding on the bearings idk but I would do that as last resort. (And with a nicely fit socket)

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I tried throwing some more grease in it and the noise went away, but now there’s a noise that sounds like something sliding. Running the motor with no load at 25mph for 30 seconds begins to cook the grease. The can gets hot right at the big bearing so I know that’s the issue. I’ll try flushing it fully when I get a chance and see if I can clear whatever debris might be in there. I hope nothing in there is permanently damaged…

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30 sec should def not be enough to cook grease even if over packed. So yeah either debree in there or the can has shifted on the stator axle like kram’s. the motor should hand spin kind of freely with no wheel attached like a rotation or two if you spin it manually.

Here is some hand spin:

Bro that’s fucked. By overcooked 3000km elofty sounds cleaner than that

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