I installed the ride-4-fun's 7.5 HP motor in my '05 GEM. It installed pretty straight forward. Earlier models may require moving a shock absorber or at least removing the tire to install - confrm with your vendor before buying!
Simply turn off the main power, remove the electrical wires, remove the motor, remove a rubber gromet in the old motor and place in the new motor shaft. Slip the new motor on apply some blue locktite to the 3 screws that hold the motor in place
The motor can be purchased from other vendor's for pre-'04 models but in the '05 and later models GEM made some changes that make it more difficult to increase the speed. Basically the controller needs to be fooled into thinking that the car is traveling below 25MPH. They achieve this by shipping a motor with 4 magnets instead of 8. This makes the speedometer read half the actual speed and the odometer half the actual distance. By doing this the speed govenor never kicks in. So when the speedometer says 15, one is actually traveling at 30, and so on.
R4F told me they can reprogram the controller (this is included in their price) but only to a certain amount. Not as much as the pre '05 models. The reprograming, as explained to me, is increaseing the amount of power (electricity) that can be delivered to the motor. The downside of this is that it depletes your batteries that much quicker. I have yet to send my contoller in for reprogramming.
UPDATE: (5/27/07)
My motor fried about a week and a half ago. It only had a bout 70 miles on it and Jim at Ride-4-fun was baffled. I sent it back to D & M Motors in Syracuse for evaluation. Jim said he is only aware of 2 failed motors and they were a result of customer abuse. I can say without any doubt that this motor was not abused.
more later .. .Oh yeah, the motor kills the batteries. You really have to be careful and only use the extra power when you know you driving plans. more details later
UPDATE: (7/2/07)
I've had the motor installed for about 2 weeks now, other than some residual electrical burn smell - I hope - it seems to running fine. I have started a blog with some notes on the reality of a 7.5HP motor, see "Some user notes on the 7.5HP motor "
2 comments:
I too have a 7.5 Hp motor from Ride-4-fun. Right now my motor is at D & D for the second time. The first time it failed I to was told it was my fault a paid for the repair. Jim at Ride-4-fun also told me he was baffled and that he had only herd for two other failures. The first time I got my motor back it made a sizzling noise and burned up after verry little use. Including NO ABUSE! My gem has new batteries and I have not driven it with the battery meter reading below 50%. Can't wait to see what happens when I get it back this time!
I shipped it to D&D and they repaired it under warranty. .
Jim treated me very fairly though he had a hard time believing the motor failed. Paid all shipping cost
Post a Comment