MAKING A TRIKE

Being doing quite a lot this last week or so but very little of it worth a picture. Spent a lot of time, but very little money trying to shot blast the frame but the results were very poor. Too slow. bought a new regulator which seems to be the business but I think the compressor doesn't have enough puff to handle a good blast. So, decided to clean the frame using flap discs and strips of emery cloth in the corners. That meant buying a new angle grinder as my old Bosch is a 4 inch model with a 16 mm centre hole and I need 4.5 inches with 22.2 mm centre hole to run the flap discs. Only £20 from Argos.

First off, the axle, having polished all the rust off it and whilst it was still shiny, gave it one coat of etch primer and one of primer surfacer. As the finish colour will be gold I may have to give it a coat of white primer too.




And this is one of the (really elegant) wheel spacers thickened up by 4mm, 2mm each side then welded. And you can also see that I forgot to smooth out the axle weld before I primed it. I'll pick it up next time I get the primer out.





the shed.




I have moved the frame around so the forks will be at the front so I can work on the left side easier and also mount the forks. Plan is to get a rolling chassis as soon as I can - I am under a bit of pressure to get the trike up and running now because the arthritis in my right hand, wrist and elbow is getting almost too much to cope with. Trying to work with a wrist splint to stop me using it too much.

As I was cleaning up the headstock with white spirit and a brush the cage on the lower taper roller bearing flicked off with the brush and the rollers scattered everywhere. I did eventually find them all and fiddle the little blighters back in the cage and on the inner race but I expect the bearing will be well shot. I will need to put the forks on and off again a few times so I shall adjust it up and see what it feels like. 

With the 2 spacers made up now I can get both back wheels on, still on the old wheel bearings and with no brakes yet, they will be an easy enough job later as I am sure the axle will be on and off a few times yet too. So the rolling chassis is getting close. 

The lady in my life has requested it be made a bright blue please. Not what I had in mind but she has put up with me doing it for 2 and a half years now so she is allowed a say. In fact a really light blue with lots of sparkly flake would look really good. Would probably get away with painting the wheels gold, too.

all the appropriate bandages splints and what ever ..to work ... it my pattern too....work on solder :builder: :mrgreen:

Nice progress, let's hope you beat the arthritis. My wife's recommendation is to cut down on aspirin and salicylates ( natural aspirin) which should help your arthritis :good:

Hi Ansimp, thank you for that, but I only take a tiny amount daily. I will ask about stopping (my wife is the expert!)

whats the Gearing on that Rear ????

ah... yes, er... according to my maths, about 10% lower than the standard bike, the sort of change we used to make by fitting a big sprocket when carrying a chair on our old Brit bikes. It may be a little more than 10% but I don't plan to do racing starts or cruise at high speed. I am building it to ride the lanes of northern England and North Wales, so a low gear set and slow speeds are called for.

With the trike it's easy enough to change the gearing with the tire size.

Turned the frame around in the garage to give me room to do the left hand side mudguard and associated pipework. This gave me room to bolt on the forks and bars to see what it all looks like. (The fork bearings are really shot, gave the yoke a little tightening and it felt like a sprocket in there.)

Moving on, hung the axle, now fully rebuilt to take the new wheels, next job there is to fix on the frame hoop at the left side so I can fit the shock top mounting bar and a temporary top mounting that will enable me to slide the top shock mount back and forth. Will need this to get the prop shaft angle right. Then I will fit proper top mounts.

Before that will have to refit the motor of course, so looking forward to taking a snap of that. This is more or less the photo sequence:








As I have been cleaning up the frame I have been spraying it with etch primer. Will probably have to go back over some areas that don't look as good as they should be but the primer will keep the rust at bay for a while.

According to the Single Vehicle Approval rules the max height of a heavy trike is 2 m. I have 1.96 m. Result!
and I will probably have to pull the bars back and down a bit so I can reach them, but I think the trike is really coming together now.

:salute: I really like the look so far. Don't depend on the primer to keep rust at bay too long. Remember it is somewhat porous to soak in paint. :beer:

me too looks great

Looking good :good:

Looks like we're all very much enjoying your work - very nice! :clapping:
opcorn: k:

thanks fellas. and Slabghost, ta. point noted. I shall get some base coat on soonest.

You've tackled a big job in a very small space. Looking great so far. I can't wait to see the frame in paint.

last job I wrote about was the shock top mounts, so I have made 2 temporary ones that slide back and forth on the bars above each and that will allow me to set the correct angle on the diff for the shaft. With the mounts sorted it became a rolling chassis and after tightening up the top and bottom shock mounts it became really tight and together.





Pushed it out to move things around in the garage and it rolls ok. No air in the tyres but at that size and for now, air is optional.
it would have looked a lot better without the skip but my better half is reorganising the garden and it will be with us for a few more days. Plenty of time for the neighbours to dump their stuff in it.
In order to set up the prop shaft I need the engine in. A couple of minutes to push it in place - and a couple of hours to get the holes to line up. Laid out the prop shaft bits on the bench.





You may recall that I needed a little movement in the shaft, not much more than 1/4 inch, so the slider takes care of that. The 2 mild steel blanks will be turned into flanges, one to take the diff nose flange and the other to take the half spigot at the engine end. I will turn the spigot down and weld it to the flange.
Quite a lot of work there so things will probably be a bit quiet for a while.

Also working on the side impact bars which serve as rear wheel mudguards and front headlight mounts and the right hand side will look something like this.





Sorry about the poor picture quality. The plan is to mount a spigot by the faux tank to take the front end, and it will be bolted on so that it is removable. I plan to run the cables inside the tube so will have to take care with the spigot and bolts.





Suddenly a whole heap of progress. As I work along the frame with the primer I shall spray on some white base coat to seal in the primer. The final colour will be a blue of some sort so a white base will brighten it up nicely.

Putting the front wheel on and found that the pinch bolts are all missing and one of the handlebar cap screws is also missing. Will probably have to go the Honda dealer for them, so hoping they won't cost too much.

I have a whole heap of jobs to do now so progress will seem very slow for a while. 2 and 1/2 years in now, probably another one or two to go!

Good progress.

I'm envisioning a very cool build here.

Looking great so far. Love the side guard mount for the mud guards. Probably not an issue but worth checking. Be sure the rear doesn't have enough vertical travel for the prop shaft to ever get 100% straight with the universal joints.

Nice progress :good:

Hi Slabghost, I don't think there is an issue there, thanks, the suspension picks up the swing arm points and there is about 1/4 inch in/out travel on the prop shaft over the range of movement, so the axle is swinging on an arc very close to the shaft arc.
when I set it up I shall check top and bottom (and in the middle!) to get the right angle.
I am glad you like the mudguard set up, took me a while to work it all out

paid a visit to our local Honda shop, Bill Smiths in Chester. Very helpful people. '78 GL stuff not on the computer, an old parts guy there Phil had to raid the microphiche archives to identify the pinch bolts for me. He hopes to have some stock in a couple of weeks. Told him I still had a couple of years in build yet so no hurry. He is also going to try to find the headstock bearings. Nice to know there is still some support out there.