Well after 2 years of riding my EV has broken down. I have been experiencing a noise from the drive line area and over the weekend tore things down to investigate. I lost a rear wheel bearing on the drive side of the Kawasaki. This is possibly due to a too tight chain and of course the excessive gross vehicle weight, but at 3,000 miles still a bit of a surprise. The bearing looks to be a low drag type (e.g. no seal) and to be a fairly cheap type. On the old bearing the race that holds the ball bearings in place failed. I am tempted to replace it with a premium quality sealed type bearing which is what is installed on the non drive side of the rear wheel (although I recognize that there may be a small efficiency penalty due to the seal friction. It seems that although I have one battery that performs worse than the others the electric stuff just keeps going and going. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good machine shop in the Denver area that can press in the new bearing for me? Otherwise I'll just take it down to the local cycle dealer. Mike Bachand Denver Electric Vehicle Council (DEVC) - Colorado Chapter of the EAA 1994 Kawasaki Ninja EV
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