HFT Swash Plate electric motor

Freddy said:

Hey Knob - when you assembled the 'mixed motor' did you do anything else to it other than put the 12T armature in the 11T case? How did it feel when you spun the shaft with your fingers? I'm just looking for reasons why it eventually showed error 26.

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Yes, you have to use the whole part going to engine side from old (OEM) electric motor, with ball bearing, oil seal and brushes. Because the axle of the 11 teeth motor is thinner the oil seal inner hole is smaller, not fitting on 12-teeth axle. The oil seal from 11-teeth axle will brake turning the axle, it's not suitable for 12-teeth axle.

If needed - renew the brushes. Old ones may work well if they are not worn out. Also renew the ball bearing and oil seal if needed. In our case the electric motor had only 29000 km lifetime, so bearing, oil seal and brushes were good, no need to renew them.

Thanks for the prompt reply Knob.

The 12T motor arrived yesterday and I opened up both the 11T & 12T to compare. And yes, the 8mm seal on the 9 mm shaft is not going to work, so I have ordered 9x15 seals to fit the 11T bearing/mounting plates as the 12T seal is too big OD, being 9x17.

The 'mixed motor' you had to replace due to error 26, did it have the OEM mounting plate on it when 26 showed, or did it have the 11T mounting plate?



I did a no-load current draw check on both the 11T & 12T motors. They both showed 1.9amp. I then assembled the 12T armature in the 11T case (with the 8mm seal on 9mm shaft) and it drew about 10.5amps, which if put on the bike would obviously not function well as the tight seal slowed the revs noticeably and would throw code 26.

Stay tuned.

Freddy said:

The 'mixed motor' you had to replace due to error 26, did it have the OEM mounting plate on it when 26 showed, or did it have the 11T mounting plate?

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We used OEM motor mounting plate, with ball bearing, oil seal and brushes. Those were all in good shape as the OEM motor had only 29000 km of life behind. The OEM motor obviously had short circuit in rotor as it kept blowing the 30A HFT motor fuse again and again.

I did a no-load current draw check on both the 11T & 12T motors. They both showed 1.9amp. I then assembled the 12T armature in the 11T case (with the 8mm seal on 9mm shaft) and it drew about 10.5amps, which if put on the bike would obviously not function well as the tight seal slowed the revs noticeably and would throw code 26.

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We got about same numbers with all motors. We tested at 10V btw for not to blow the DC-motor on free run.

You can push the motors 12-teeth axle into 11-teeth mounting plate oil seal, it will fit very snuggly. But in the end the smaller oil seal inner hole will heat up and will choke the motor turning. You can try if you have power supply with current limiter.

So just to be clear - when you assembled the 12T armature in the original bearing/mounting plate using the 11T case, it eventually gave error 26. Is that correct?

Freddy said:

So just to be clear - when you assembled the 12T armature in the original bearing/mounting plate using the 11T case, it eventually gave error 26. Is that correct?

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I presume by "armature" you mean the rotor of electric motor? So yes, we used the new armature and the new part with permanent magnets. Mounting flange part with brushes, ball bearing and oil seal was taken from old motor.

Armature - yes that's what it's called down here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armature_(electrical)

Thanks Knob. I intend to fit a 9x15 seal (when I get it) to the 11T bearing/mounting plate and assemble it with the 12T armature and test in on my bike to see if I get the same error 26. I will check the current draw on the Honda one when I remove it to compare with the other two. I have spent almost half the cost of a new genuine Honda shift motor so far. No doubt you did too.

Freddy said:

I have spent almost half the cost of a new genuine Honda shift motor so far. No doubt you did too.

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So it is... So it is... Motorcycling is not supposed to be a too cheap hobby. Similar ATV parts are much cheaper.
In the end we used a brand new spare OEM motor I had on my garage self and the short northern summer went happily on again...

Also take a look here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/165142666979
This part may work, but still is a bit too old to take a risk to stop the short riding season by my humble opinion...

Yes, I saw that ebay item last week.

I just want to follow up on your good work out of curiosity, and see if I get the same result - which I hope I do not. But time will tell.

Success!

Today I assembled the new 'mixed motor' with a new 9x15 oil seal in the 11T mounting plate and the armature from the 12T motor in the 11T case. I did a no-load current draw test which showed 1.9amps. I then removed the original shift motor from the bike and did a no-load test on it, showing 1.7amps on the 'worn' motor. I thought and hoped that 0.2amp difference should not make a significant difference and cause it to show error code 26 as Knob had - which it did not.

The transmission functioned perfectly on a 20km run in all modes - D, S & M.

Freddy said:

Success!

Today I assembled the new 'mixed motor' with a new 9x15 oil seal in the 11T mounting plate and the armature from the 12T motor in the 11T case. I did a no-load current draw test which showed 1.9amps. I then removed the original shift motor from the bike and did a no-load test on it, showing 1.7amps on the 'worn' motor. I thought and hoped that 0.2amp difference should not make a significant difference and cause it to show error code 26 as Knob had - which it did not.

The transmission functioned perfectly on a 20km run in all modes - D, S & M.

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Good to see your success!
Maybe in our case the TCM motor current measurement system was a bit too sensitive. I mean the TCM survived a motor short cut failure before, this might have some influence for current measuring shunt resistor (or who knows how it is made in the TCM). If the current measuring shunt resistor's resistance became now even a little bit higher it may start to give a false information about motor current value and it may trigger the error 26.

0.2 amps difference really is not much and should fit in a tolerance window.

Please let us know how the new system will work in future. And also how much you spent for all the project. Is it worth to perform or would it have sense to go for OEM part. I mean most of people nowadays are not capable to mix two electric motors...

Yes 0.2 amp is 11% increase but obviously within tolerance. I imagine a new Honda motor would draw slightly more than one that has done 20,000km. It was 40% of the cost of a new Honda motor which I had been thinking of buying while they are still available, but now I don't have to. Thank you Knob, for your good earlier work. I would not have done this without your trail blazing.

I opened up the Honda motor to have a look inside at the magnets. I found some black dust in there from wear on the brushes, which are still in good condition, and the magnets look secure.


I will leave the 'mixed motor' on there for now and go for a longer ride in a few days to ensure all is good.

Freddy said:

I opened up the Honda motor to have a look inside at the magnets. I found some black dust in there from wear on the brushes, which are still in good condition, and the magnets look secure.
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Honda do not say anything about it, but it looks like the motor generally will need some servicing time to time - blowing out the coal dust, renewing some grease on bottom bushing, checking the magnets and brushes condition etc. 20000 km may be a good service interval?

The price difference compared to OEM part is huge. Not counting this fact that this motor probably will not be available as an OEM part soon any more. If I recall japanese bikes OEM parts are well available for about 15 years after model production ended..? After that it will be kind of a lottery... Soon we will be glad if there is some substitute part possible to find/mix for this clever el-motor at all.

If anyone wants one I could make one up the same and mail it them for about half the price of the Honda part plus postage cost.

As I mentioned in an earlier reply, this has been some great work from you guys. What would be useful to readers such as me is an overall summary and guide for this - i.e. what is the part number for the new motor, which parts are re-used from the original, and where the new oil seals are sourced from.

Thanks again for all your work on this!

There are no part numbers as such for the 2 motors - I simply searched ebay using Knob's descriptions of them. I used nothing from the original Honda motor and I got the seal from the local bearing supplier tho it had to be ordered in due to uncommon size.

As Knob said, it's apparent that all these little motors, the Honda one included, came out of the same factory in China.

BobF said:

What would be useful to readers such as me is an overall summary and guide for this - i.e. what is the part number for the new motor, which parts are re-used from the original, and where the new oil seals are sourced from.

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Honda OEM part number for the HFT control motor is 31300MEH003. This part is not any common part, but used only on DN-01.

The two motors used for build the mixed motor are actually aftermarket parts for Honda ATV's.
One motor is for Honda TRX500FA Rubicon/Foreman 2001-2012. You get the 12-teeth rotor/armature from this for the mixed motor. One example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/165988027523
Second motor needed is for Honda TRX420FA FourTrax 2009-2021. This is looking like the OEM motor, but has 11 teeth rotor/armature, so not directly suitable to use on DN-01. This second motor is needed for mounting plate, similar to the one on DN-01. For example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325606917545
And then you need one oil gasket 9x15 mm, probably you will get it from your local ballbearing shop.
Mix the parts all together as explained above and you should get an electric motor similar to Honda OEM HFT control motor.

As mentioned in this thread, the bearing housing of the 11T motor is the same as the Honda part however, it has an 8x15 seal under the bearing due to the 8mm shaft and can't be used on the 9mm 12T armature. The Honda motor and the 12T motor both have a 9mm shaft but the seal under the 12T bearing is 9x17 so won't fit in the 11T bearing housing, that's why you need to get a 9x15 seal. I got a 3mm wide seal and it fits perfectly tho the 9x17 seal was 4.5mm wide. Follow?

EDIT: just back from a 40 minute ride and all is good. I'll put the original one back on now and keep the spare for a rainy day, or for someone in need of one.

Took my DN to a self-serve wash. It was packed and I was forced to begin washing almost immediately. BIG mistake! It all went well and the 35-minute ride back was as good as always. When I arrived, I saw that the shifter started blinking "-", but since there was no issue, I just left it there as it was.

The next day, wanted to go for a ride but things were different. When I pressed D, it didn't immediately go there, took a few seconds. I still gave it a try. It started moving as always but after a few seconds, I realized it didn't shift the gears, like it is stuck in the first gear. It revs up as usual but doesn't shift the gears. I started troubleshooting...

The error is 8 blinks, TP Sensor error. But also a few times it gave the DTC 26. Reading everything I could find here and in the service manual, I thought it was the swash plate control motor. I took it off the bike and plugged it into 12V, it turned, and it seemed normal. I also took it apart and the insides looked fine too. Just a bit of black powder. Put together and back on the bike. (My bike has 11k on the ODO).

Tried HFT Initialization twice. Did the whole procedure to the point, warmed up, waited 4+ minutes, and the whole jazz. It gets up to number 2 and starts blinking again without moving to 3, giving DTC 8.

I ordered a multimeter for troubleshooting the swash plate angle sensor and the TP sensor, but I will appreciate it if anyone can share their thoughts on this issue. Thanks in advance.

I can't help you much Mika. It seems you're heading in the right direction getting a m/meter. I opened my bike's swash plate motor not long back (when making up a spare for future use if need be) and found the same as you saw above - all good. DTC 8 has 2 parts - 8.1 & 8.2 I see in the FSM (factory service manual) tho the illustration on page 11-22 shows just 8 short flashes while 11-26 shows TP low pressure and TP hi pressure fault procedure. Keep us informed.

SUCCESS!!!

So here is what I did.

When I initially took off the swash plate control motor, I tried to move the gear and it seemed stuck. I kept reading the service manual and found out that the reduction gear should move freely and the procedure was to remove the swash angle sensor and the swash angle control motor and move the gear and see if it turns freely. I did, and it was not moving. I kind of pushed at it with a flat screwdriver and suddenly it got unstuck and started moving freely.

I put the swash plate angle sensor back and the control motor back. After I fired the bike up and there was no more error blinking. I turned the bike off and followed the HFT initialization protocol. This time it worked as described. I was almost jumping from happiness but there was one more test to do. Yes, you guessed it right. I took the bike for a short spin and it worked as usual, I was able to ride normally with D, tried manual mode, and switched gears, it also worked, tried S mode - also worked. Now I still have no clue what was the cause of this issue but today I stand victorious!

Thanks for the replies and hope my story can help someone else!