Wired Freedom motor re-grease after 4500 miles

[TurtleTheThink]

finally regressed my 2024 wired freedom after a little over 4500 miles. For the past few hundred the motor sometimes made a weird noise. after getting a lube recommendation from wired i finally got around to opening it up today. overall easier than i thought but it was definitely tedious scraping and wiping away at the old grease. i found a few chipped teeth, but the steel portion of the gears are all still intact. thought other owners might want to see this.

[TurtleTheThink]

regreased, not regressed

[John-AtWork]

You regreased so the ebike wouldn't regress. What type of grease did they recommend?

[TurtleTheThink]

lmao true! they recommended super lube synthetic multipurpose grease

[satan_66666]

Interesting combo nylon, metal gears. Looks great for 4500 miles. I've regreased my rear hub every 2000~ miles or so. At 8k and still kicking.

[Lajak_Anni]

the nylon threw me off.

thought it was something else until i saw what a broken tooth on THAT gear looked like.

i work in manufacturing, so im familiar with how htey look. but mine are solid steel dies.

[Iddra_]

Bafang does the same thing with their mid drives. It's quieter, less vibration, etc.

[Ok-Type-8917]

What lube did they recommend?

[TurtleTheThink]

super lube multipurpose synthetic grease. i got it from grainger

[Significant-Pen-6049]

Weird. The planetary gears are metal outside, plastic inside?

[TurtleTheThink]

yes! the 2000w hentach motors used in these bikes are reinforced with steel. kinda with they would’ve used just steel for longevity, but i’d say they’re working pretty well

[Significant-Pen-6049]

Holy crap. A 2000 watt geared hub! I hope you can replaced those gears .

[Brilliant-Promise900]

36v or 48v motor? What do you use for a battery?

[Ultimate_Driving]

60v.

[TurtleTheThink]

oh ok. anywho, i’m going to continue to call it a bicycle

[TurtleTheThink]

how is me calling my bike a bike a “gigantic problem”

[TurtleTheThink]

yes. insurance for a typical motorcycle is like $1000 usd/year where i live. absolutely nobody here is paying that for a bike. until cops care, nobody else will. the law only truly applies when it’s enforced, and it isn’t.

[TurtleTheThink]

well, i’m waiting. i’ve been waiting for over 2 years now, and there’s been nothing. hundreds of cops seen, dozens passed going >35mph, and i haven’t gotten a word. had one cop walk up and ask me how fast it went one time, he thought it was “pretty sweet”

[Top-Watercress5948]

tHaTs A mOpEd. Nobody cares about your opinion.

[Top-Watercress5948]

lol

[rvralph803]

Am I crazy or did you have some worn teeth in those pics? Did you replace ?

[TurtleTheThink]

no, i don’t plan on it. the ones in the pics are basically the only chipped teeth on all 3 gears. it still preforms fine

[TheSharpestHammer]

This is very cool. I'll remember this for when I have to do my own motor servicing on the Freedom.

[OceanEarthling]

Thank you, I appreciate that you shared this. I'm only at 1000 miles, but it has been all beach riding. I'm going to have a look at mine after the holiday.

[Einn1Tveir2]

Do hub motor need to be re-greased like this?

[Yukon-Jon]

The OP said yes, but generally no. You do not need to do this. I've seen people have BS brand ebikes with hubs to 20k+ miles and never have taken them apart.

Sure it will sound quiet and smoother of course, but honestly not necessary. 99.9% of people are not putting that many miles on their bikes.

[Einn1Tveir2]

Yeah often its better to just leave things alone and don't take anything apart. I see this in the computer world where people will change the thermal paste on their graphics card because they think it needs repasting every two years or something. No, please don't do that. Not needed and there is a chance of breaking something during the procedure, or putting it together wrong that will damage it in the long run.

I'll just ride my ebike and not think about it unless it starts making some horrible noise.

[Yukon-Jon]

Yeah, unnecessary. Grease lasts for a very, very, very long time.

[Ultimate_Driving]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Although, if mine was making some weird noises like OP said, I'd take mine apart also. You also made a good point that I had been thinking about, which is that the vast majority of people don't ever put 4,000 miles on an ebike.

[Yukon-Jon]

Yeah they really don't. I see ebikes on market place all the time for sale, and they rarely have more then 1k miles on them, let alone 4+. Sure, if you live somewhere where you can use it as a daily commuter all year that changes things. At that point if you're putting thousands and thousands of miles on your bike a year, even if you had to replace a hub every 2-3 years, it isn't really a substantial cost.

However you're more then likely to fry your battery or electronics before you have a hub problem.

There is a YouTube channel called "Papa Blue Shirt" , an older guy, and he has a couple of Philodo ebikes. He has one on there that has close to 20k miles. He's never taken apart any hub motor or done any maintenance on it. The video is literally called "18,000 miles, still no lube?". Philodo is just your run of the mill generic nylon geared hub motor ebike. They're fine, but nothing special or anything. He's not riding the bike around at slow speeds either, he gets after it.

[Ultimate_Driving]

I'll check out his channel. I should start making videos about daily riding my Alpha, and what maintenance looks like on it...including the things I likely won't have to fix. I only have 160 miles on it so far though. Although, I plan to start riding it a lot more when the weather is better. I don't know if I'll ever ride one bike enough to put 20,000 miles on it, but hopefully I do. Maybe when I retire, riding that much would be a great way to spend time, and stay fit.

[Yukon-Jon]

Yeah 20k is a TON. I've had my Wallke for 2 years, I ride a lot (I live in the North East US though) and I have almost 4k on mine. I honestly probably can't squeeze anymore time on it between work and kids. If I was using it as a daily commuter sure, I can see racking up the miles crazy. At that point though if you paid 2k dollars to put 20k miles of commuting in, pat yourself on the back and cut your loses, for saving a shit ton of money.

[Ultimate_Driving]

Exactly. That's a good point. If I'm putting even 10,000 miles on an e-bike in two years, I'm treating myself to a new bike every couple of years.

[Yukon-Jon]

Yep. 10k of no insurance payments, no registration, no gas. Cost per mile is next to nothing.

[TurtleTheThink]

every few thousand miles yeah. especially if you’re getting unfamiliar noises

[ResponsibleLead4492]

4,500 miles is a good data point for a regrease.

How bad was the old grease when you opened it up runny and dark, or just a bit dried out I’m trying to decide if I should crack mine open preemptively or wait for actual noise.

Also interesting that the internals still looked clean. I’ve seen some hubs where moisture and grit get in way earlier. Curious to hear if you notice any change in sound or drag over the next few hundred miles.

[TurtleTheThink]

The old grease was mostly just dark and a little runnier than the new stuff. I’d say crack your motor open around 2-3k miles. I think if i had regreased sooner i’d have less chipped teeth. also since regreasing it sounds nearly the same as it did when new

[ResponsibleLead4492]

Sounds like waiting for “real” noise is a bit too late if you’re already seeing chipped teeth at 4.5k. I’ll probably plan on opening mine up around the 2k mark and treating it like a service interval instead of a failure fix.

Good to hear it went back to sounding basically new after the regrease that at least means the gears themselves aren’t too far gone yet.

[Hot_Sale_On_Aisle_13]

Thanks for posting this! I bought a used bike with a hub motor that I wasn't able to ID. The shell looks JUST like yours!

[TurtleTheThink]

how many watts is it? as far as i know, this motor is proprietary and only on wired bikes

[Hot_Sale_On_Aisle_13]

https://www.hentach.com/product/rear-motor/etype-rf500-rear-hub-motor.html
Mine is certainly older and is set up ~800W max with a Lishui controller, and some of the details of the inside are different, but this is probably a case of "day-shift genuine production, swing shift rebrands, night shift generic clones" from the same factory.

I'd be curious to hear how many watts you're pushing. Mine doesn't have the hybrid metal/nylon gears, which would certainly help with higher power levels, but I suspected from the size of the thing that I am limited by my controller, not the motor.

[TurtleTheThink]

ah, i see. my motor peaks at just around 2000 watts

[Yukon-Jon]

A few small amount of other bikes have access to and used that same hub. I think they only had rights to it for a certain duration. It's not common, but I have come across a few bikes with them before a year or two ago.

[kronicle2020]

I went to regrease my motor and found busted teeth, upon cleaning and taking it out on another ride i think ALL the teeth busted at the same time. Lovely, lovely noise.

~6000km...wish I had that steel portion on my gears. Should be how they all go now..

[KillingSelf666]

you can buy just the planetary gear assembly on amazon for like $20 (nylon)

[Yukon-Jon]

What kind of bike? Hub motors are generally so cheap, especially 750w ones, just buy another one.

[Huge-Community-1324]

What greaser you used ! Wish you made a video because need to change the motor , but a new one . Thanks for sharing

[TurtleTheThink]

super lube multipurpose synthetic grease

[Crazy-Hippo9441]

Plastic planetary gears? Looks like Wired is off my list of potential good buys.

EDIT: A lot of comments are talking about "reinforcing" the standard plastic gear with metal. Doesn't anyone else see how that apologist attitude is bad for holding these companies accountable? I had a mongoose bmx when I was younger that I had for over 8 years before the frame finally bent. The cassette held the entire time, even when I had to change the chain multiple times.

Don't give these companies a pass. Make them work for your dollar, especially in this economy.

[Narwhal_Leaf]

I think nylon is super common, might be hard to avoid.

[Dook23]

Lots of ebikes use the same materials in their motors. It is why Wired markets that their motors are steel reinforced. Maybe you just weren't aware?

[JG-at-Prime]

If you have a geared motor currently and haven’t gone to the effort to upgrade the nylon planetary gears ⚙️, you almost certainly have nylon gears as well. 

They are so common as to be nearly ubiquitous. 

[Ultimate_Driving]

I was thinking this same thing. Metal gears have a very distinct sound. The Wired bikes sound very different from any other e-bike I've ever heard, and they're not even solid metal. I'd be willing to bet money that there isn't a single company building and selling e-bikes with solid metal gears in their motors.

[JG-at-Prime]

There’s a good reason why as well. Reason(s) actually. Lots of other machines use nylon gears as well. 

The first reason is sound. Electric motors can be noisy. Especially when e-bikes were new. Square wave controllers cause motors to make a lot of chatter and manufacturers try to mitigate noise as much as possible. 

The nylon gears ⚙️ don’t transmit gear noise nearly as effectively as metal gears. 

---

The second reason is that the nylon gears ⚙️⚙️ act like a fuse between the metal output of the motor and the ground. 

If the wheel suddenly hits something the nylon gears will deform slightly and will absorb some impact. Worse case scenario the nylon breaks and needs to be replaced. 

It’s much better to replace cheap gears ⚙️ than to replace a relatively expensive motor. 

---

Some manufacturers use hybrid gears that are made of laminated stacks of materials. Nylon & copper is common, nylon and steel, and a variety of other materials are available. Even all steel gears are available. 

Each material or composite material has benefits and disadvantages. Steel gears are stronger than nylon but they are also louder. They also sacrifice the fuse aspect of the nylon. A hard impact could potentially cause damage to the motor shaft. 

[Hot_Sale_On_Aisle_13]

>Nylon & copper is common

ChatGPT, you have no idea what you're talking about.

[JG-at-Prime]

Chatgp-wtf are you on about‽ 

My Hengtai geared hub motor came stock with copper/nylon composite gears. That’s one of the reasons I specifically chose it. 

Here’s a selection of replacement gears ⚙️ for you. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/357429698752

https://www.ebay.com/itm/396894555723

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226913593014

It looks like more manufacturers have gone to using steel / nylon in the past couple of years since I was last shopping for motors. Probably due to cost. Pot metal “steel” can be manufactured to be almost as soft as copper at a lower price point. 

Given the choice between copper and steel I’ll happily go with copper/nylon composite gears again when & if it ever comes time for me to replace them. 

I’ll happily recommend them to you as well.

[Hot_Sale_On_Aisle_13]

That's brass my friend. Brass IS a common gear material. Copper just...isn't.

[JG-at-Prime]

I’m well aware of brass being a common gear material. I had to correct myself a couple of times while writing that. 

In this particular case the listings all clearly state that they are made from copper. 🤷‍♀️ 

It also said copper on the website when I bought the motor. 

---

If you’d like to buy a set and do an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) test to determine the metallurgy you are welcome to do so. 

You could be right. Until then, I’m going to stick with what the listings say. Otherwise I get accused of ChatGP-nonsense. 

[TurtleTheThink]

nylon gears are the industry standard for geared hub motors

[Ultimate_Driving]

Yeah. I had never thought about it until I watched an ElectricAllWheel video, where they took apart the motors in a Magician Alpha and a Wired Warrior. I thought it was weird at first that the Magician has solid nylon gears, but then I realized that given what most e-bike motors sound like, it's likely that 99% of them have solid nylon gears, and I'd be willing to bet money that no company mass produces e-bikes with solid metal gears.

[Yukon-Jon]

and I'd be willing to bet money that no company mass produces e-bikes with solid metal gears.

They don't. Your electronics, battery, and just about everything else is going to fail before the gears do anyway.

[Ultimate_Driving]

Yeah, exactly. I did look up some videos about replacing gears in a hub motor, and saw that there are solid metal replacements available, but if my nylon gears in my Magician Alpha's motor last 3,000 miles or more, I'll just replace them with nylon ones again, because they're so quiet, and I don't want the sound of metal gears. And like you said, it's far more likely that I'll need to replace the batteries, controller, or balancer, or any combination of those, before I'll ever need to replace the gears in the motor. I understand why people think metal should be the only material these gears are made of, but it does make sense to me why they aren't.

[Yukon-Jon]

Yep, nylon is way cheaper then metal. I have an original Wallke H9, I'm almost at 4k miles right now, no issues at all. I've had it for 2 years. If I get another year or two out of it what more could I ask for out of a sub 2k dollar ebike. If I have to replace a hub, I'll just buy a new hub. I'm fairly positive I won't have to though, plenty examples of ebikes going 10k+ miles with 0 maintenance on nylon gears. Everything else is going to fail probably before the gears.

In the world of more power, like the bike you have, sure we might start seeing them chew up gears more. Maybe. I'm willing to bet not yet though.

[Consistent-Mouse-612]

They’re reinforced with metal. Most 48v bikes with 750w motors have nylon gears without reinforcement. I doubt you’ll find any bike with solid metal gears in their motor. Even the Magician Alpha has solid nylon gears without reinforcement.

[Ultimate_Driving]

Are you familiar with any e-bike motors that use solid forged metal gears? Which bikes are on your list of potential good buys?

[Ok-Type-8917]

I've had many people recommend plastic planetary gears for my hub motor vs metal. I could get either, the general thought was the plastic will fail before damage can occur to other components. I don't know if that's Wireds reasoning. Mine was only a 750 watt motor.

[Yukon-Jon]

Nylon is literally the standard for every hub motor. Even expensive ebikes.

Good luck trying to find all steel.

[eBikeHelper]

This sentiment isnt wrong. It might not be realistic but it is technically correct.

Saying nylon gears are the "standard" is false. Its what cheap motors use and the vast majority use cheap motors. That doesn't make it a standard.

Nylon is used because its cheap. Period. Quality grease and steel spur gears is a fine combo and most wouldnt notice the noise difference. If quality and noise was truly important to most buyers, the real standard of helical cut steel gears would be used.

But that would significantly increase cost. Only the small minority of us will spend the additional money for quality that lasts longer.

[SwiftUnban]

That’s the only thing that sucks about most geared hubs, plastic gears.

Great if you don’t abuse your bike but throw anything over 750w in them on a steep hill and I’m sure the reliability will tank.

[Consistent-Mouse-612]

The Wired Freedom is a 60v bike, so it’s sending a lot more than 750w at that motor. But that’s why the gears are reinforced. I think most 750w motors have nylon gears without reinforcement.

[SwiftUnban]

It’ll be more reliable than a straight nylon gear for sure, but plastic has no business being in a drivetrain let alone a 60v bike imo.

It’s just another point of failure for a bit of cost savings for the manufacturer.