July 27, 2010                                                  Trike project update

   The seat bottom frame is completely built and welded onto the main trike frame.

    The fork downtubes have been completely fitted and  welded on and the fork's mounting extensions also welded on. The forks have been temporarily installed along with the wheels so I could weld the steering tie rod extensions from the forks on to them.

 They have to be aligned properly or the trike won't steer correctly when turning and the tires would scrub and slide instead of keeping traction.  I used about 10 degree's of top inward tilt and about 12 degrees or so of back tilt when mounting the downtubes.  That also is to help the trike track straight and turn easier when riding.  

 A separate support tube was added between the back of the seat mount and the main rear triangle tube. This will serve both to stiffen the rear frame and give a place to mount an engine if the guy that's having it made wants to do that  eventually.

 I hope to get the steering arms mounted and all the connecting bits hooked up (temp) in the next day or so but I think I'm going to run out of welding gas first before I can get that all done.

 Since this trike is a clone of the last one I guess you don't get as much gas in the bottles during the summer when it's hot outside as you do during the winter because they have to keep the max pressure down to a certain limit. (I checked everything for leaks too just to make sure and there wasn't any)  The last trike I built back was back while it was still cool outside and I had enough gas left over to build a small trailer too. This time I'm going to have to refill the bottles just to finish the trike itself which is going to put a crimp in the project plans as I can't afford that until the 4th of next month. I also still have to build the seat back and build the assist trailer too.  I hope the guy I'm building this for doesn't get too upset when I tell him I need more welding gas. I told him originaly one set of tanks would probably do everything as it did last time I built a trike.  

July 23, 2010                                                  Trike project update (I've run out of titles here....)

   The seat frame is now partially assembled.  I planned to get more done but my leg said 'not today' for the last couple of them so I'm just now catching up again.  The guy I'm building the trike for brought over some stuff I needed so there isn't really any holdups left for putting the rest of the trike together that I can think off at the moment.

   He brought over another box of parts he ordered today for the trailer.  Of course the stuff he got wasn't all what he ordered although he hadn't realized that and probably wouldn't have seen what was wrong if he had examined it all. I've seen enough various scooter parts to recognize the wrong ones on sight.   It was even on the inventory sheet, correct numbers, but wrong parts in the box.

  This seems to be pretty common with all the scooter parts companies out there on the net.  I have ordered parts from quite a few of them over the last few years and so far only one place has consistently sent me what I ordered every time.
  I would normally use just them but they don't have any electrical scooter parts.    Anyway, the company was contacted and is supposed to be sending out the correct part- an 80t #25 sprocket, and after digging around in my scooter stuff I also found a correct version of the motor sprocket he needed. They sent the wrong sprocket for that too.

   I did manage to get the 1/2" nuts welded on to the center sections of the fork downtubes today. That is always an aggravating job to do as I end up having to grind off about 1/8" of messed up threads so the bearing nut and lock nut will screw back down on them again. I can't think of any other way of attaching the nuts and they are what holds the forks on.  It works well though and I've never had any problems with that setup so I'm going to stick with that design until something better turns up.

  I'm trying to decide whether to give this trike an overdrive function on the pedal gear ratios. I can add a second set of sprockets back on the rear bb that would allow the trike to either use the mountain bike gearing or pretty close to a road bike gearing. Instead of 15 speeds he will have 30, a low 15 and high 15.  There would be a lot of overlap in the middle gear ranges but that isn't a problem. It's the higher gear ratio to lower the top pedal cadence speed  that's needed..

  The reason I'm considering adding the second gear set is actually two fold. 

  (1) The bigger gears will have an easier time with the rear chain alignment as it would be basically what the original
        parts bike had.   
  (2) He plans to add the assist trailer.  The way the gear ratio will be setup on the trailer, the trike and it will have a
        maximum speed of about  20 mph. That would be a very fast pedal cadence with a mountain bike gear ratio
        and the fact that the trike will be using a 24" instead of a 26" wheel adds even more turns to the cadence.
        I don't think he could keep up with the motor at it's full speed without the extra 'overdrive' capability .

  I know for a fact that I couldn't do it. On my trike I run out of capability to keep up with the engine at about 15 mph in my highest gear ratio and the trike will max out about 27mph. I normally keep it under 20mph though because it is a lot less strain on the engine and the state law says 20 mph on a bike is max for the electric motor or gas engine drive alone and no gear shifting with gas engines at all.

  I don't really want a speeding ticket while riding on a recumbent trike. Around here you are also limited to to a max of 49cc on the gas engine and 750 watts on the electric motors.  I prefer the electric motors but a small gas engine would give me much more range so I switched to one. It's a lot more noisy but 1/2 gallon or so of gas will go quite a bit farther that a battery pack will (at least the type I could afford) and I WANT cars to know I am there so it's not a big deal to me.
 
   My trike also has a mountain bike gear ratio on the front end also but I have only a smaller single speed sprocket on the rear hub. (no gear shifting on engine - law) It's actually just a regular single speed hub with a coaster brake off a 20" bike. It handles the torque from the engine much better than the screw on type free wheel type rear wheel I originally had on there. I kept breaking the free wheels.   I haul around a heavy trailer quite often on my 'junk finding' runs so I try not to put too much strain on the engine when first getting everything moving from a stop. I have a cvt transmission on the trike's 49cc pocket bike engine that uses a belt and it works great but the belts are getting a bit hard to find because the original pocket bike has been discontinued for a few years now which included the cvt.

July 20, 2010                                                  Trike project update

  The main frame has now been fitted and welded together except for the head tubes where the front wheel forks mount. I used my band saw to do about 75% of the fitting. The cuts were very close to the shape the ends of the pipes needed to be. It didn't take long at all to finish the fitting with a small air-grinder.

  The seat frame should be done tomorrow if the weather holds out. (I work outside on this big stuff)  The guy I'm building it for is supposed to bring me some more parts tomorrow. I should be able to complete the rest of the frame  including the head tubes after that.

  Most of the parts for the trailer are still on order so I have plenty of time to finish the trike first.  I still need to find out what size batteries the guy plans to use in it. That will make a lot of difference in how I build it.  I want to try to keep the center of gravity as low as possible and keep the weight balanced between the trailer wheel and the rear trike wheel with more weight on the trike for stability.

July 17, 2010                                                  Another trike project

  I had my delta trike for sale up on Craigslist and had a few lookers but no buyers.  It's a bit heavy to pedal without the power assist system installed.  One of the people that came by to see it was a retired guy that needs the power assist to ride comfortably. He asked about my tadpole trike and tried riding it too. He liked that one and asked me to build him one.

 He is supplying all the part bikes and I have already cut out and cleaned up almost all the parts for the new frame. I hope to get started fitting and welding it all together in the next couple of days. The weather hasn't been helping much for the last few as it has rained quite a bit.

 This one is also getting an electric motor power assist system but I'm not putting it on the trike itself.  There will be a trailer with the batteries, motor, controller, etc that will push the trike when in use.  This way if he wants he can hook up the pusher trailer to some other bike or just ride the trike without it if he wants too and won't have to haul the weight of the trailer which is going to be close to 100 pounds because he plans to use big batteries in it for long range.

 I'm still going to build the trike with enough space behind the seat so he can add a electric motor or bike type gas engine to it. He may decide that he would rather have a gas engine like I did with mine.

July 12, 2010                                                  Shop Update

  Some parts for the scooter bike finally come in and I got the clutch fixed. I'm not sure how it's going to work though as the bolts on it are almost stripped. I really need to get another engine but this one is going to have to do for the moment.

 The brakes and the engine throttle are hooked up and a new #25 chain installed from the engine to jack shaft. I put some gas in the tank and cranked it up. It started easily so I tried to ride it around and it seemed to  work fine for a few feet but the jack shaft chain keeps coming off.  I don't quite understand the problem there as the sprockets are lined up and the chain tensioned properly. I think maybe the jack shaft sprocket might just be a bit too thick. The chain will barely fit over it.   I'm really beginning to dislike #25 chain all the way around. I've decided to change it over to 8mm or preferably .410 gears and chains so it will be next month before I get to ride it I guess as the shop budget is already gone for this month.

 The set of mirrors got here and looked nice but the first time I tried to adjust the left one it broke off the mount.  Poor work on the part of the factory on that one because the reason was obvious after I looked at the bits.  They had left a rolled out edge on the end of the little metal inside support cup and it dug into the plastic side of the mirror instead of sliding as soon as I tried to move it. The other mirror works fine.  I'm probably going to have to send pictures to the place I got it them from to get this one replaced before I can prove it was a factory screwup though. 

 I haven't had a chance to get the motor fixed on the table saw so I made another motor mount for the saw and used a dryer motor I had. It's rather anemic compared to the regular motor but it least it works. Hopefully it will work until I get the other motor fixed or replaced.

July 06, 2010                                                  Bad Shop Day

   Today was simply not a good day for me all around.

   My table saw motor decided to it didn't want to start anymore and I was hoping it was just the start capacitor. It is a 50 year old motor so that was logical. At least I thought so anyway.  I took it off the motor and rode my mobility scooter down the road to an electrical motor repair shop.  The guy there tested the cap and told me it was fine. So I guess now I need to decided whether or not to get the motor repaired or just buy another motor.  The hourly labor cost is about $50 plus any parts needed so I'm seriously thinking that it would just be better to buy another motor.  Harbor Freight has a 1/2 hp one that is on sale quite often for about $60.

  About the time I got almost home the transaxle on my mobility scooter broke down on me. I'm not sure what happened but it's making a horrible noise, and there are parts rattling around inside the casing.  I think one of the differential gears have broken apart. I know I cannot afford to get that thing replaced with a new one so I'm going to have to go in some other direction to get the scooter functional again.

  Surplus center has a couple of lawn tractor transmissions for less than $200 that would work pretty well if I used a bigger scooter motor with them.  S.C. also has a couple of 24v transaxles like what's in the scooter but they are more expensive.  An alternative is just use a scooter motor driving the axle stub from the current transaxle.  One driving each side would be even better. I guess that's going to be my new project after I get this current bike/scooter project done.

July 03, 2010                                                 Busy Day

   I started to work on a brake switch for the new scooter this afternoon but I had a bunch of kids show up needed bits of bikes fixed.  One needed a rear rim, tube and tire. The kid had been riding around on the original rim by itself. He ruined a high quality rim doing that.  Another needed a pedal and the chain adjusted, while the last one needed his seat adjusted and tightened up so it would stay that way. All of them needed air in the tires.  It took a little while but they all left happy.

  A couple of other kids came with them of which one was a little girl about 5-6. When that kid grows up, she is either going to be the head of some type of racing team or something like that. She definitely knows how to use a wrench and removed one of the nuts off the axle of the bad rim while the boy that owned the bike was doing the other side.  It amazed me that she could even break the nut loose but she did and finished before he did.  She wanted to help me put the tire and tube on the new rim too but I did that myself as I really don't think she was strong enough to roll the tire over the edge of the rim.  I sure she would have as least give it a good try though if I had let her attempt it.   This kid needs an old engine of some type and box of tools all her own to tinker with.  It's unusual for a girl that age to be that mechanically inclined and I hope her parents encourage her in that activity as she is a natural mechanic.  

 I did also get my cable brake switch made. I plan to make another one just like it tommorrow. This will allow me to use regular brake handles on the scooter instead of the ones that have a switch in the handle itself.  I don't care for that type as they have a tendency to break at the grip hinge.  I have one on my electric scooter that broke there last week I need to replace.