Monday, August 17, 2009

600+ miles on my Twike

I'm at 664 miles mostly commuting from work to home and back. Some of the trips have been to downtown Portland in the evening to attend a OEVA meeting which makes for about 36 miles a day (with two charges since my range about 20 miles). Yesterday, I went for a hike in Forest Park with my son Paul. We picked out a nice starting point, drove the Twike there, did a nice 2.5 hr hike and drove the Twike home (10 miles round trip and lots of elevation gain). A true green activity since I charge with 100% renewable electricity from PGE at home. On a more technical note, last weekend I replaced the differential oil with a synthetic brand. This seems to have fixed a lot of the noise problems I was having at 40-50 mph. There is still some noise but much less. I may still need to look at the motor mounts and see that they are lined up and tight. I think next on my list is to fix the canopy from opening so far that it hits the plastic windshield. Over time I think this contributed to is loosing its grip/glue on one half. I still on occasion have problems with the speed sensor going out, mostly when its hot and usually after lots of regen (like on my trips into Portland). Pulling over for 2 minutes and restarting seem to fix it for now. I have email from a friend in England who suggests the speed sensor needs adjusting and gave me details on how to do it, but it is involved and may involve dropping the motor/differential. Not a 5 min job. I have driven every day to work since July 1 except for 3 days when we had 106 or near 106 (really high temps mess with the charging), when I went to Boy Scout Summer Camp (drove my gas car, ugh), and went to Florida on vacation (took a plane!). Every day it gets more and more natural to drive and a gas car feels more and more foreign when do I drive one. My Lexus needs a 90k service and it may be its last ;-)

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