Brammo Owners Forum

Today I changed the fork oil in my Empulse R. I looked at the various threads and decided on the following. Buy a small motorcycle lift table of ebay. Using some wood to avoid the chain and keep the lift table off the lower fairing I lifted the bike near the swing arm pivot. Then made and fastened a braced wooden frame from the floor to the bobbin holes in the frame. I bolted the frame securely to the bike. Lowering the table slightly pivoted the bike around the frame to enough to lift the front wheel. I was then able to slacken all the various Allen and torx  bolts , remove the fender, release the brake calipers, remove the wheel and then the fork legs one at a time. This was much easier than anticipated, holding the top nut in a socket I was able to rotate the leg until it unscrewed, there is no spring tension. I slide it down slightly and then poured out the old oil. Surprisingly there was only 300ml even after pumping the leg. Both legs were the same . I put 425ml of 5 grade oil back and I'm very pleased with the ride. Much improved, always found the recommended 7.5 grade oil harsh. Hope this helps others as this is a job I should have done many miles ago. Bike has 16k miles now.

Very much enjoying my Empulse R.

I drive it as my daily commute 60km to work.
charge at work and then 60km back again.

Love every second of it.

Small update.

I have received a second PLUS as spare parts carrier. It was already stripped down and is in a terrible shape. However I've now got a DC-DC, the Sevcon motor controller, the motor itself and one battery module as spare parts - not to mention the high-quality brembo brakes, marzocci fork and a set of rims. The frame is considered scrap... The battery module read just 8V but took charge and balanced well up to a full charge. I am aware of the danger it poses and am storing it away from any burning material. Inner resistance per each cell is around 60mOhms, so they appear to be usable. Now I just let it rest and observe the voltage drop over time.

So I replaced that spare controller with the one in my bike. Unfortunately I have 100% the same behaviour: No charging possible, high controller temp up to thermal cutback and also high motor temps.
@KaFr was sending me his LOG info - it appears as a healthy controller temp is around 20-30C. Mine goes up to 75C. Motor temp should be around 60C - mine goes up to 115C max. But both controller and motor are cold to the touch, so I think the VCU messes up the sensor readings. Since the replacement controller shows identical temps, I really don't think it's the controller itself.

To wrap it up these are the symptoms:
1. bike would not take charge - but dashboard displays CHARGING with all LEDs and lights on as expected
2. bike accelerates REALLY slow. A 50cc/2kW scooter accelerated 2x faster after a traffic light stop and is gone for 100s of meters before my higher speed.
3. top speed is around 100kmh and max power output is up to 13kW as max.
4. bike does not recuperate at all (it feels like this might be connected to symptom 1)

What I tried so far:
1. balanced the batteries to have less than 0.015V drift. No more error messages!
2. visually inspected the charger => no obvious damages
2. replaced the motor controller => see above, no change in behaviour

Since the VCU seems to be the root cause of my problems, I was looking of a spare VCU - and found one!! Also, I received a comment that it might also be a misaligned motor encoder. So my attack plan looks like this:
1. replace the VCU once it arrives (and inspect my original one). If this shows no effect:
2. replace the motor

I will keep you posted from time to time...!

Hello to all,
my friend from Germany managed to get an original Parts Manual for the Brammo Enertia Plus!
Unfortunately the file is too large to attach to the post (3700kB). How can I share it?

Hi, where are you all? Winter has gone, spring is raging.
Just made my Enertia ready for a new season.
Who is still riding an Enertia?