MAKING A TRIKE

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transitman

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Chester, Cheshire
This is I think the right place to begin. This trike build started 2 years ago and has been documented on NGW, before I found this site. If it's ok with you I will put up a summary over the next few weeks of the last 2 years, may take some time, and then pick up the build proper.

It started with this. A non-runner, sold with 'electrical problems'. I looked it over, found the throttle slides moved ok, put it in gear and it turned over ok. Otherwise, and as you can see, it looks a right shed. It was advertised near Birmingham. took the Transit down and a bunch of fit lads put it in the back. Bought a crane to get it out and parked it in the garage. It came with the usual piles of plastic, most of which won't go back on. It is a nominal '78 but the engined dates from around '75, recorded miles just 22,000, and the evidence of electrical problems everywhere.

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One of seven grandchildren trying it for size.

Started pulling bits off.


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and started to make bits up. Spent a lot of happy hours in scrap yards, found loads of good stuff. After a couple of months got the basics together, an industrial calorifier for the tank, holds 5 US gallons. A Morris Minor back axle, and for those who don't know what a Morris Minor is, it was a post war jelly mould with an 845 cc motor and it stayed in production for many years finishing up with about 1100 cc. It was a surprisingly good drive. Designed by Alec Issigonis who went on to do the original Mini, amongst others.

The wheels came from a scrap yard too, 4 Range Rover Sport wheels with excellent tyres. These tyres and the axle ratio of 4:1 gives me a slightly lower driver, about 8%, which is what you would look for when hanging a chair on a bike, by fitting a bigger sprocket.


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Building the suspension. I have a 50 ton pipe bender which makes mincemeat out of 1/4 wall tube. Turned up the bushes, threaded them, fitted rose joints and made up the brackets for the axle. Sounds easy now, took months!

More to follow.
 
Photos look great transitman :good: You don't say but I take that you have had it running by now? :yes:
 
Running? 2 years off yet! Still a pile of bits scattered all over the garage.
Frame largely complete, few more bits to stick on. Engine hanging from crane getting paint stripped off. No wiring attempted yet, propshaft still in build, no reverse gear, the list is endless.
 
Has anyone seen the trike build that ian did on full custom garage?interesting way to go about it


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catch up episode 2, and first off thought you might like to see a couple of the tools I use.


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this is the pipe clamp, holds it solid with only a little pressure and will take any amount of force needed to work a tube.
next up a handy little chop saw does 1/4" wall tube easy enough.


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only problem is new blades are about $50 and get used up fairly rapidly. Tend to use the angle grinder for rough cuts.
Thought I had a pic of the pipe bender on the laptop but must have lost it. Will post it next time.
On to the trike, this is the stripped down frame, took a lot thought and hesitation to get it this far, and I kept the bits, just in case!


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made up these assemblies to weld to each side of the axle tubes


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and then placed the main swinging arm in place


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In the end of the arm is a turned down end piece welded into the tube with a cross hole and shaped fitting for the rose joint. In the original swinging arm position I turned up a brass bush to be a tight fit in the housing and a sliding fit for the rose joint.

next post soon as I can!
 
Catch up episode 3, this was the work going on around Christmas time 2012. The pictures aren't necessarily in proper order, they have been dredged out of the file to best illustrate what was going on. For example, the back of the frame was not cut down in this post, it was in the last, but it shows what I was thinking in sequence.


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This shows how I was looking at the propshaft, rear axle, and rear frame. The flywheel is on the propshaft to allow a reverse gear by running a starter motor against it so it runs backwards. Motor and flywheel off Alfa 156, flywheel heavily skimmed on a really big lathe and a fancy centre welded in, cast to carbon, that fits the Morris Minor diff nose and the Mitsu L200 short shaft. I turned it up on a hobby lathe. Much searching in scrapyards preceded this lot.

Wheels are Range Rover Sport. I will try and find a picture of the adaptor I made to join the axle to the wheels. What really sold me on the wheels is their 8 inch internal offset which allows me to not have to shorten the axle. The 3 inch offset of the propshaft (to go around the bike back wheel) I dealt with by making one wheel to axle adaptor 3 inches longer than the other one. This has led to some really strange looking alignments as the build progressed, but nothing I can't live with.



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This pic shows the first stage of the rear suspension arrangement and how it carried on in the first pic. Everything propped up on bits of wood here, and as you can see I have made a dolly to take the engine. It is just the right height for pulling out of the frame and pushing it back in, which I seem to have to do an inordinate number of times. All the paint marks on the axle help me to line things up fairly quickly each time something moves.



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This last pic shows where I thought the tank would go. After fiddling with it for a week or so I gave up on that idea and stuck it on the rear frame, leaving me the space where the old tank went to make some sort of electrical system box and also to take a car battery earmarked for the build. You can also see, if you enlarge the picture, the unfinished suspension tube position. There is more suspension work to do yet and I will gather that stuff together for the next post.

BTW, you just wouldn't believe the fun I've been having putting all this together. Never mind it will take years to finish, much as I want to ride it making it is something else.
 
Hi Guys, thanks for the comments.

Omegaman, not sure entirely what you are asking, but the drive shaft hits the nose of the differential at a right angle, it's just the differential itself is 3 inches to the right of the centre line to line up exactly with the drive shaft output at the gearbox.
The rear brakes are the Morris Minor drums (single leading shoe!) the whole of the rear wheel, brake, rear drive unit, rear suspension is taken off. The shocks get put back later, and for me, the design key point is using the same location for my rear axle as the bike swing arm even though my swing arm is much longer. This means that I am not interfering with the relationship between the output shaft and the suspension as designed by Mother Honda. She was concerned to make the 2 points coincidental to minimise any driveshaft length change with suspension movement. If you strip it all down and peer through the swing arm hole you look at the precise centre of the output shaft pivot. I have retained that relationship.

Don't know if I've said it before but the whole idea is for the trike to be naked, to show off all the tubular shapes I am building in and celebrate the whole mechanical engineering thing! Even the headstock (aka triple tree) will be visible with no headlight in front of it. I like mechanical things!
 
this pic might help, still all balanced on bits of wood but gives the main relationship of the rear axle, drive shaft and output shaft.


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You are looking down between a lot of pipework and a bit to one side as it looks as if it is off a right angle. The original output shaft will be fixed (somehow!) to the short, black Mitsu L200 shaft. You can also see my extensive lightening of the flywheel.

I will explain all the other pipework as we go along, but the ends of the pipes you see on top of the frame are the front seat risers - they form a padded seat back and headrest and with the passenger seat backrest give a roll-over bar. Not that I intend rolling it.... and all that mucky looking welding will be well disguised!
 
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