Honda 360

HONDA 360 CONVERSION (Mariah's Wind)

Mariah, aka Veggie Girl, was early on getting off of petrol when she had a 2-tank SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) system installed on her 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Having travelled thousands of petrol-free miles in that over the years, I must say that system works!

When I met her at a schwenker party in my Electra-Van, her curiosity about electric vehicles was aroused. She wanted an electric motorcycle with a classic look, that was fully street legal, and with 60 miles range. It was at this time over a year ago that I was about to stick my neck out for an order of Thundersky LiFePO4 batteries. So, I included her order of 48V 90AH pack for the bike that might be called Mariah's Wind, because all you hear and feel while riding on it is wind.

It took a while to find a donor bike, when Craig's list yielded a Frankenstien 1974 Honda CJ360. This bike had a history of customization, but the chromed frame turned out to be perfect for fitting the battery pack, an ETEK-R motor mounted on the swing arm, and an Alltrax 4340 controller, along with ancillaries such as DC-DC, 48V coil contactor, etc. Thanks to Brian and Chris at Thunderstruck Motors for being an excellent source for components.

The most difficult task was building a custom motor mount on the swing-arm. It took about a calendar week to design and fabricate this. There was no more than ¼ of an inch margin to fit this thing on the swing-arm. The first rev was on the road barely on time to go to Port Townsend's Earth Day event. It snowed that April 22nd morning, thanks to global warming. By 1pm, it was 45 deg F and sunny, excellent biking weather for this region after the winter from hell (wait-snowballs in hell? - whatever).

After getting the chain drive system dialed in-14 tooth drive sprocket with a 60 tooth wheel sprocket from McMaster-Carr, this one-speed clutchless wonder has a top speed of 55mph and I went 50 miles on it before reaching my destination and plugging it in. This was a ride to Seattle to Bent Bike to look for a fake gas tank. Gold Wing 1000 gas tank covers seemed to be a workable size, following the contour of the battery pack beneath very nicely. Bent Bike prices their junk too high, though, so we used them for sizing and landed one right here in PT at Jim's Honda dealership. He even had brand new ignition keys for the old bike with the correct code, stashed in a drawer, which was helpful because the donor bike's key was about to break off.

We knocked the rust off the tank, painted it, and built mounting brackets to place it on the unusual frame and hide the 15A Zivan NG1 charger in it. I love this ride! Sorry, Mariah, you can't have it back.

-Sam Maynard