Repairs

I have only had to do a few things to the Versatile so far. The first problem(besides the tail light) was the drive train sounding loud after hitting a particularly hard bump. I had pictures of the chain chewing through the body somewhere. As it turned out, all that was wrong was that an O ring on an idler sprocket had let go. While I was not able to find an exact replacement, I found something that worked easily enough. To check out the chain I just needed to remove some aluminum plates from the bottom of the VM. The fasteners are standard Torx sizes.

The only major problem I have had, was with the shifter for the Rolhoff hub. There are two tubes, one inside the other, which depend on superglue to transmit the torque forces from the outside to the inside. I was still able to shift, if I grabbed low enough, and squeezed hard enough, but had brushburned knuckles by the time I made it back home.

Since the shifter is on the right control handle, I needed to remove the right wheel, and loosen the brake cable, so I would have room to get the top of the control handle off to access the shifter. The scary part was using a torch to heat the brake lever mount. This was necessary to break free the loktite which secured the mount in place. I had to heat it long enough to get things smoking a little. Once the brake lever mount was removed, it was just a matter of pulling the two shifter halves apart, regluing them and reassembling everything else.

This is a cutaway view of the 14 speed Rolhoff hub which the shifter controls. Rather than being biult into a wheel, it is installed mid-drive at the front pivot of the swing arm on the Versatile.

The only other repair I have had to do was the right brake cable. The life of this cable was no doubt shortened by my getting it too hot when repairing the shifter. It is interesting to note that while I knew something was wrong, I didn't lose the brakes, since the reversing wheel, which ties the left and right brakes together, continued to pull the lower half of the right brake cable even though the upper half at the handle was broken. I took the time to radius the point where the cable passes through the lever, as Elrey Stevens ( the first American Versatile owner)
had recommended. This will reduce stress at the lever and extend cable life.