This is the Lectric XP and it is a budget bike that does not have a suspension fork.
We're going to find out if we can put one on.
I have to say that I don't know if this is actually going to work.
I haven't installed a suspension fork on this specific model of bike, but it
is a common request that we get, because we sell forks like this on our website.
There are enough people asking specifically about the Lectric XP that I'm going to try it.
This could be a success and we have a nice air fork installed on the bike. This could
be a disaster. It doesn't work at all. There is no sponsor for this video. This Lectric XP
is a bike that I paid for with my own money to do modifications like this and see what
works and what doesn't work on this specific bike also did a review on this bike a few months back.
You're welcome to go check that out, but I do want to take a moment to talk about the
Bolton Ebikes Podcast. But first let's get to the fork is a fork, swap something you can do
yourself. Is it easy to do? And let me show you the tools that I have on hand
that I may or may not need to get this swap done.
It's not a difficult process in my opinion,
especially if you've done it once or twice before, but if you have the right tools,
it makes a world of a difference. If you don't have the right tools, it can be
rather tricky. We are going to just loosen up. What would normally be the stem area. Instead,
we can have this big, long extension here, but we're going to pull this off and we're going to.
Loosen the caliper. We're going to pop that off, pull the fork off of the bike,
nothing special really needed for that part of the process. Now to put the fork on, we need what's
called a star nut inside of this tube right here, that looks like this. This is a star nut setter.
And then I also have a new headset, basically new bearings and everything to go on the new fork,
just in case it makes the install easier. And I also have this tubing cutter,
which I'm probably going to need. I find that often when we're converting folding bikes to
a suspension fork like this, sometimes we have to cut the head tube of the fork down.
And of course, a genuine Park Tool Bicycle Hammer that is well used and well loved.
And already, I can see that I'm going to need one more tool to make this happen.
And that is this closed loop right here. These are kind of annoying when they're on like that,
because the only way to get the cable out is to run it,
fish it through, which means I actually have to. Pop this guy off and install a new crimp
and I'm going to have to get a wrench for that nut on the backside of the fender here.
I also forgot that this particular wheel is not a quick release it's bolted on.
So I need to grab a wrench for that to crimp two wrenches. And hopefully that's it.
I brought this specific 10 millimeter wrench, because
these are always either eight or 10 millimeters, but not this one.
Hey, front wheel is off, fenders are off, headlight is off, now it’s time to remove the
stem. So the best thing to do on this, which of course is another tool I didn't grab. So this tool
list is getting much longer is a six millimeter ball wrench, because the way these are designed,
this is kind of in the way. So you need to be at a slight angle.
So A ball and Allen wrench or hex head wrench
allows you to be slightly off center or off to one side and it still works.
And this one just isn't quite going to cut it. And that's really tight.
Holy cow.
That is a long bolt and it was really tight.
So this is kind of a unique design. I haven't seen one quite like this. Most of the folding
bikes that I've worked on, have a different setup here. So I am cautiously optimistic
about this whole thing working. I'm still not sure what's going to happen.
So normally what would happen at this point is the fork slides out because the stem is held on with
usually a longer than average bolt down to the star nut pounded into the fork.
And this whole thing comes out, but it won't because we have
this on here. And if we pick up the fork and swivel it, you can see it turns back and forth.
I'm assuming we need a special tool that goes into these two notches right here. And we screw this,
which means this might be a threaded fork. Uh, this could complicate things.
Okay. So here's my idea to get this off. So I put two of those in there to give me something to
grab onto and then boom, on twist. Now we can pull this whole piece off. And here, you can see that.
Yeah. This is a threaded fork, threaded headset, uh, which is totally different
from what we've got. Let me, let me show you over here.
Here's the suspension fork I was hoping to put on it. You can see no threads
thread list or no threads, whatever you want to call it. That is kind of the standard.
These days Lectric XP is an 899 bike. Uh, It is a budget bike for a reason. This is where you think,
Oh, well it doesn't have a suspension fork. Well, I can always upgrade it later.
Uh, well, maybe cause this, uh, this does complicate things a little bit.
I guess we'll keep trying,
Well, it looks like this project is officially dead in the water
and some days that's how things go. When I put out videos about how to upgrade things,
how to change a suspension fork, how to put different tires on tubeless, whatever it is.
What you probably don't see, or I know you don't see most of the time is how many failures it took
on some of these videos to get their success. I like it when things go smoothly, but that's
not always what happens today is an interesting day, because this is not actually the first video
I had planned for the next YouTube video to come out.
I had actually planned something else about. Batteries and a certain bike,
I had some new batteries come in. It was supposed to be made for a certain bike.
I was going to show you how to install it is going to be awesome. Maybe go right around,
do a massive range test. I'm going to put the battery on.
Now, keep in mind. This is a bike that we have made for us.
The battery is made by or supplied by the same manufacturer. So it's not like we're
even trying to put aftermarket parts together and the battery didn't fit. The bike. It wasn't
correct. It looks like my suspension fork is not going to fit on the lectric XP bike.
And let me show you why before I started to go any further
with taking things apart, I thought, you know what? I better check one thing on this one.
Bolton Ebikes has a podcast. I am the host and every Tuesday we release new episodes.
Often we have guests from other ebike companies. So if that's something you want to check out
and know more about, make sure to go to e bike podcast dot com.
And I'm also mentioning it here on YouTube, because I have been releasing some of those
episodes to our Research Level Technician Members on the channel. So if you click that join button
down below this video, you can. Join the membership. There's two levels.
Currently the 99 cent level. He is the lowest amount I could charge.
And that is for accessing the live chats on the regular live videos that we do,
which I will be doing another live feed by video review tomorrow on Friday. And yes,
that will be another giveaway bike as well. And then if you pay the 9.99 membership level,
that's when you get access to new products and ahead of schedule, you get access to some of
those podcasts live well before anyone else gives me recorded versions. So those are all things that
you can check out. If you want more content to explore, you want to sooner than everyone else.
Uh, so here's the fatal flaw as to why
this won't work with the parts that I have. You see, there's this tube and this slides down. It
seems simple enough. As long as the inner diameter of our replacement fork is the same.
We can just do the same thing and wouldn't, you know, it doesn't fit and it's not like
a small amount where we could, you know, sand it down a little bit with some sandpaper and get it
squeezing. It's a noticeable difference. There's no way that's going in there. So, if you want a
suspension for it, for electric XP to fit with the stock handlebars set up, that means you would have
to find a threaded 20 inch fat bike fork designed for bolted on or quick release style of wheels.
So, unfortunately, I don't have a solution to fix this. Now, the easy way I think to do it
would be a, you replace this entire assembly. So all of this hardware has to come off.
Whole new headset is going to be put on. And this stem extend or handlebar piece would
have to be completely replaced with one, like we use on the Crusader, the Avenger,
some of those other models, but with what this bike has, it's not going to work now.
That's not a piece that I have just lying around.
Unfortunately, like I said, That's why this project is dead in the water. So unfortunately
it means I'm going to have to just put the bike back together the way it was.
And at least then the bike is a functional e-bike at that point, ready for future experimentation.
This is the inverse fork for the Bolton Ebikes Blackbird. Currently it is made
by DNM that is going to change soon because they can't make enough of them.
Fast enough, but this is the version that's being shipped out on all of the
current bikes. And I've had some questions about this particular fork.
Obviously there's a big difference in height between these two, because this one
was designed for a 20 inch fat tire. And this is designed for a much larger 26, but besides that,
this is the inverted design, and this is the standard design that most of you are used to.
Both of these are air forks. And both of these have some adjustment.
We have an air nozzle or a valve right here.
If you unscrew this, it looks like a typical Schrader valve. Ideally, you want to use a special
fork pump. Do you actually add air to this? Uh, basically the difference is they can go up to
higher pressures as an example, the Blackbird fork takes 150 PSI, so that's pretty high.
And with a smaller standard pump. Yeah. What often happens is when you have a low volume of air under
a very high pressure, when you go to pull your pump off, sometimes you get that little bit of air
that shoots out when you pop it off. And sometimes you'll lose half of the air out of your fork.
If the adapter is not designed, basically to not let any air out when you disconnect it.
So that's why fork pumps are a little bit different and why they work a little bit
better is because when you pump it up to 150 PSI and remove it,
you're not going to lose a bunch of air when it's disconnected. So you can adjust the air on this
particular fork. To change the compression, basically how hard or soft the fork feels.
And you can do the same thing on the Blackbird fork. You just have a little cap right here
and you've got the same type of Schrader valve
underneath it. So on this side of the fork inside is an air mechanism that can be adjusted
on this fork. You have an air mechanism on this side that can be adjusted.
Now the opposite side of the fork does something. Different. Now, if you think about this,
as far as a vehicle or a car, often, that's something people are more familiar with.
Sometimes you have what they call a coil over shock, meaning that you have a piston,
usually some type of fluid inside that makes the shock move up and down slowly.
So it's not moving really quick. And then outside of that, you have a smell spring or a coil,
which is over the shock. And the reason for doing that is if you just had the spring,
it'd be like a Pogo stick. It would just bounce. You know, you'd hit a speed bump
and your car would just go point going. And obviously we don't want that to happen.
You want it to absorb the bump and then smoothly come back. And so that's what the
opposite side of the fork is for. It's going to have oil. In it. Now this, on this fork,
this one has an actual lockout with adjustments in between. So inside of this oil piece,
you have basically a valve. So when you're turning this, you're actually
turning a piece inside and there's holes in that that are getting blocked or unblocked.
So when the holes are all open, the oil can move freely up and down through the fork and
you get your damping action. And if the holes are completely blocked, can you turn it the other way?
Then the oil can't move at all. And that's how the fork actually locks. Now for this one, it
doesn't have a lockout that just wasn't an option we could get on the fork and have it made in time.
So what does this fork have instead? Well on the bottom right here,
this is our rebound adjustment. So it's a knob that twists back and forth much like this guy
does, but it doesn't have a fully locked position. So it does change, uh, the rebound,
how the fork moves back up and how quickly it does that. But there is not a lock out.
Now, one of the questions we've also had is when people remove this axle right here.
The oil side will actually extend out further. If you let it, then the air side will, let me,
let me explain. This might be a little confusing on this. If you change anything, remove anything,
the axle, it doesn't change the length of these two pieces because this is one solid piece.
But on this, this is a solid piece. And then the part that extends are separated. So these two
pieces can move independently. So same setup as this style of fork, but the way it's constructed,
it operates very differently. But sometimes this confuses people because they're like,
Oh I pulled the axle out and, and these aren't lined up.
And I just want you to know that that's completely normal. The way these ones are designed,
the air side is what limits the overall travel when the axle is in place. And when these aren't
tied together like that, then yes, this can extend a little further than the other one.
All you need to do is line them both up. Slide that axle in and that's good to go.
So I am disappointed that this nice air fork will not fit on the Lectric XP bike,
at least without further modifications. Let sometimes that's how things
go. If you're interested in more, how to videos on electric bikes,
most of which do work out as planned. You can go check those out right here.
Once again. Thank you for watching Bolton Ebikes. Make
sure to hit Like and Subscribe. I'll be back for another video next week.