When last we spoke about this scooter, almost two years ago, it was just after I had picked it up for a Benjamin off of craigslist. It was never meant to be a show bike. It’s a bike that despite being electric, had seen some miles., got banged up by god knows what along the way and had someone who was completely without a clue attempt to cheap out on the batteries. I’m surprised that it ran at all. In other words, it was a crap bike! PERFECT!

Here it is, long story short. I was planning on building an electric bike when I saw this one and I thought that at least with this one, everything is in place it will just be a matter of switching out controllers, wiring etc……I found a charger on Alibaba and just decided to ride the bike until the batteries that were in it finally died. While that was in progress I decided that I would tweak the body a little.

Surprisingly it took about a year for those batteries to die. During that year, I decided to start changing out a few of the things that I didn’t like about the bikes styling. I found that my bike shared the same body panels as a standard GY-6 based Milano scooter. I discovered that you can get an entire set of plastics for under $100! I didn’t actually need them, but it was good to know, just in case. I found a little outfit out of Las Vegas, Scrappy Dog Scooters, that had all of the body parts I needed. (They are great guys by the way. Fast shippers, too!)

The first thing I did, was order a set of replacement lights and toss those hideous stalk brake lights and turn signals. I replaced them with a nice set of euro-style flush light covers. This did require me to shorten the wiring a little but it was pretty easy to do, and it gave the bikes over all appearance a more sleek look. I also replaced the tail light with the same style tail light. The new one is much much brighter, so that makes me feel a little bit safer when riding at night.

After that I turned my attention to correcting a few other things. Zap!, the Maker of this bike felt the need to splatter every open space on the bike with something that had either their logo on it or the actual word “Electric.” It had to go! As it turns out nothing was attached with anything more than a cheap adhesive, so my heat gun made short work of it. A little follow up with acetone evened out the where the adhesive was before and seemed to also clear up the fading that had occurred around it.

Next up, Batteries!

The Zap! Zapino from what I can tell, is, or more accurately was, for its time a fairly powerful bike. It’s oddball 5 battery, 60 volt 35 ah system combined with the 3000 watt (yes, I know I said 2000 on the first entry, but research since then has proven that it is actually 3000) motor made for a surprisingly quick little ride. It wasn’t that way when I got it though. Whoever had it before me had cheapo 12 v 28 ah batteries that really only made it good for only the slightest of inclines which is exactly how I rode the bike for most of the first year. Yes, I spent a bit of time pushing it up hills. After I spent two more Benjams and a Grant for a new set of batteries from Battery Shark.

After finding the owners manual online I discovered a couple of interesting things about the Brannigan. The first being that the batteries it needed are actually 12v 35ah sealed lead acid (SLA) The second thing I learned is that these are the exact same batteries that motorized wheelchairs use! I don’t know why, but that makes me smile.

Installation

Battery Shark was great to do business with and they were by far the cheapest place to source the batteries from, and I got lucky because when I ordered them, they had free shipping! Shipping 115lbs. of batteries isn’t cheap, so I was elated!

The next step was to install the batteries….and that sucked on a whole new level! “Why?” you may ask. I’ll tell you.. As it turns out, on a 2008 Zapino, installing batteries require stripping off the majority of the already fragile bodywork!

I felt pretty confident in what I was doing because so far, everything had gone exactly as the owners manual and it’s shitty wiring diagram had said. I even took pics of the batteries as they were hooked up in series…because I’m a genius electrician, don’t ya know!

So, after much care, and cursing and placement and diagrams and photographic evidence taken by my son, I got the batteries in and started rewiring the series. Or at least I thought I did…Battery 1, positive to negative, good, rinse and repeat four more time….. Oh, and hey, look a switch! What’s that do? Oh, it’s the one that controls either sport or eco mode….. We’ll not be needing that eco mode…..snip, snip… solder, solder…..Hello new top speed! 60mph! It may not sound fast, but on 10 inch scooter wheels, it’s pretty terrifying! Still though, it’s electric, so that’s a pretty impressive speed to hit in my mind.

Now would be a great time to remind you that some previous owner had the bright idea to rewire things himself…he changed the color coding on the battery wires, that means that somewhere in my system, there was a short circuit…. which didn’t connect until I hoked up the last battery in the series….ZAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!!

Super Powers

It turns out the thing that had completed the circuit was my hand, the needle nose pliers that I was holding the battery bolt in steady with and the battery terminal.

What happened next couldn’t have possibly taken more than a second or two at the most. I swear to you I was experiencing Matrix time. I saw everything as it happened and almost in slow motion. My pliers slipped, connecting to the actual battery terminal. At that point all of the built up electrons and other sub atomic power particles came rushing out like hipsters to the next new thing, only to be shot down. More accurately, the lead battery post immediately vaporized as a all of the power decided to find its way out into the air… through my hand.

In that moment, actual power was flying out of the side of my hands into a beautiful arc . I could feel it racing across all my nerves manifesting in flames shooting from my hand and into the air I think I should have gotten super powers, but instead all I received were temporary heart palpitations!. Had this been in the comic books that would have resulted in either a new super hero or villain origin story. My son, who was the sole witness to all of this said I was laughing like a maniac the entire time, so super villain it is!

It was all very cool, but since I am not a huge fan of sudden self-immolation, I decided to call someone who… how should I put this gently…knows what the hell they’re doing.So I found a guy… He confirmed pretty much everything I’ve told you. Nice bike, a little ratty, shitty wiring diagram and irritating battery replacement process. He had everything out and put back together by the next day. Best $75 I’ve ever spent!

Double Duty

In the past three months, I have nearly doubled the mileage on the bike. taking it from the 1950-ish kms to 3100kms. For those of us on this side of the pond, 1150km is about 715 miles. It might not sound like that many miles, but consider this. The entire bike cost about $450 after repairs and registration. 715 Miles in my car is about 2 1/2 tanks of gas, so that is about 42 gal. The gas price here in California is currently about $3.15, so that is about $132 in money I didn’t have to put in the tank. A full charge on the bike costs something like 25 cents. At this rate the bike will have paid for itself in about a year, faster if I ride it more. I would say that alone has made this crazy project worth the trouble.