Fitting 135mm Bionx hub into 130mm
 

I bought a recumbent. It is an old Catrike 700. I want to turn it into an EV.

The Bionx electric bike system is 135mm. The dropouts on the Catrike is 130mm. Any way to make this work? It has a disc brake mount but if I could somehow remove it that would save enough space. Or maybe a shorter freewheel?

The freewheel makes no difference. The space between the axle locknuts is fixed. Is the frame steel or aluminum? A steel frame can be cold set for a wider rear wheel, aluminum not so much. If the chainstays are long enough you could wedge the wheel in place. The disc brake mount also doesn't affect how easy it is to use that wheel.

i think researching the bafang hub motors : they offer both a cassette rear wheel and a freewheel wheel kit. i think the spacing for the freewheel version is narrower and i see on the e-bike forums some people have dropped from 7-speed to 6-speed freewheels to get an even narrower spacing . let us know what you end up going with and what you find out in the process

Bionix is long gone, the company went out of business quite a while ago. I wouldn't bother with that system it is a lot of work to put on an outdated system with no support from the company.

Plenty of new recumbents that are set up with e-assist already which will be more reliable but if you are desperate for a kit, ebikes.ca is a more reasonable resources for that stuff however those kits won't have the support of say Bosch or Shimano. However keep in mind cable rim brakes aren't really great for e-assist. Disc Brakes are pretty handy for e-bikes.

Looks like a aluminum system. Oh well, I guess I'll just make it into a normal recumbent.

I like the bionx system a lot because of the Regen brake. It is very heavy though. I thought it would be great for a recumbent. It is currently on a road bike but the weight makes it pretty uncomfortable. I think I'll move it to a suspension MTB

Go with a front hub motor. You will need to file out the drop outs to 10mm and use a good torque arm.

Regen brakes don't do anything. Essentially it makes the bike extra hard to pedal and that is about it imagine trying to charge the batteries from a little phone charger like my Goal Zero Flip 12 it won't give you much. On all the regen stuff I have ridden and seen you really don't get much back from the system as the bike weighs nearly nothing in comparison to say a car which actually generates something decent. It is a cool concept but not yet ready for bikes yet and with bikes getting lighter it is unlikely it will happen at least not in current form.

I would just sell off the system to a vintage kit collector or someone who wants spare parts and go with something more modern. You will be much happier and if you get one of the "decent"ish kits you will have potentially better support for a while or if you buy a complete e-bike you can get excellent support depending on the motor brand.

[QUOTE][I like the bionx system a lot because of the Regen brake. It is very heavy though. I thought it would be great for a recumbent. It is currently on a road bike but the weight makes it pretty uncomfortable. I think I'll move it to a suspension MTB/QUOTE]

The Bionx Can be setup to use anybodies controller and battery's. : ebikes.ca has a video telling how to set it up. If you use Grinn's controller you can get rid of the motor drag also.

Yes you can fix a Bionx hub to use a generic controller, but you wont have regen unless the controller supports it.

Really, get a newer wheel. If the Bionx works, you can sell parts to someone whose system died.

-SP

Grinn has controllers that work with regen and get rid of the motor drag. It is only money,