By Lee Bell

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March 09, 2010
                                                Fork assemblies installed

  The mounts for the forks have now all been made and welded on. The lower steering arm connectors have also been mounted to the fork mounts.  I still need to install the tie rod mounts but that will be done after the rear triangle has been installed as I can't get the correct angles until then.  The triangle should get installed within the next day or so.



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March 07, 2010
                                               Fork assemblies 1/2 done

  My leg gave me a lot of problems today so I did not get much done on the trike. The kingpins that hold the forks onto the frame were finally finished this evening.

 Tomorrow I plan to cut and weld the 1/4" thick by 1" wide mounting brackets onto the forks. The fitting on those will be done the easy way. I'm just going to drill a 1 1/4" hole in the center of a double section and then cut down the center of the hole for each set of brackets.

  A 1/2" hole will be drilled on the other end of each one. Those holes will be in slightly different spots depending on if they are the top or bottom mount so I get about 10-12 degrees of inward tilt on the wheels. This helps with stability when turning and take some of the side stresses off of the wheels.

 The drawing below shows how it will look when I am done.



March 06, 2010
                                                Donor Trike Slowly Being Assembled

  I managed to get some more of the trike done today.  The main boom tube and seat frame are now together. I hope to get the rear triangle welded on in the next day or two.   I have had so much company in the last few days it's been hard to get anything done.  Two more people with bike problems turned up this afternoon. I haven't has this much company in the last three months!   Normally the rush doesn't get started until about April.  I guess the economy is affecting that too.


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March 05, 2010
                                                Pocket Bike Pics and New Plans

  I found a picture of what the new pocket bike is supposed to look like. The top picture is it's normal look. The three side by side pictures are what I actually have and the bottom drawing/picture shows the  modifications needed to make it an adult sized scooter.

  The frame will be stretched about 1' in front of the engine and the top part of the frame replaced. Another support will be added for the rear shock and the rear cargo frame.   This setup will give a storage area about 1' tall by 1' long and 8" wide.  If it is converted over to electric that space will be used for the batteries.

 


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March 04, 2010
                                                New Toy

  Not very much has been going on the last couple of days as it's been nasty and raining outside but today turned out a bit better.

  One of the local kids has been tinkering on a pocket bike for the last couple of months and finally managed to mess up just about everything on it.   He has brought it over to my workshop a couple of times already before this and I told him what he needed to get for it, where to get it and the price they charged both times.  It didn't have but a couple of minor problems originally.

  Today he brought it over again asking what he needed to fix it.  This time though he had already disconnected the entire electrical system, most of the bolts for the motor is missing, the pull starter and the lights are gone.  The battery was hanging outside the frame by it's wires.  The front cowling and the side covers are now also gone along with the seat pad. The engine is partly disassembled and needs a new pull starter and a number of bolts.  It also has a cracked motor mount on the bottom casing so the casing will have to be replaced also.   It's basically mangled.  The only things still put together properly is the frame and wheels.

 He said his mom told him to fix it or get rid of it.  I went through it again and told him what it would cost to replace all he had removed and broken and he decided to sell what was left of it to me for parts instead.  I wiped out the workshop budget for the next month but I bought it from him.  He was happy, I will be happy and his mom will probably also be happy.

  So now I'm the owner of one dissasembled, missing some parts pocket bike.  It's an X-treme xp490 bike  and has a 49cc motor on it identical to the one on my trike except that this one has a standard transmisson.   I believe it will run once everything gets put back together on it because I spun it over with my drill and it did sputter a few times. I'm sure the carb also needs to be cleaned.    The frame is the biggest one that is made for these bikes from what I understand and it has good suspension on both ends. It's also got the widest tires I have ever seen on any pocket bike. The rear one is 6" wide.

 Now I have to decide what to do with it.  I have two choices at the moment. I can convert it into an adult sized moped/scooter like I did the other one except that this one will have a 49cc engine instead of electric motor drive or I can take the engine off and install it on my delta trike.   This frame should easily convert into a really comfortable adult scooter so I'm a bit torn on the direction to go as I've been wanting an engine for the delta trike for months now and this is the engine that was originaly drawn into it's building plans.  I guess there is one other option here too. I could make an adult sized scooter from it, convert it to electric and still use the engine on the delta trike.



March 01, 2010
                                                 Donor Trike Project Update

 The donation trike is coming along now that the table saw is working again.   I got about half of the tubing ends fitted today. Just fitted, not welded yet.  (I would have gotten more of them done but kept having company come over. )   The base of the seat frame was welded together and is ready for mounting also.

  I gave away the 2 26" wheels that were on one of the donor bikes.   One of my older neighbors a street over showed up asking if he could get them.  He was told by one of the local kids evidently that I had an extra set.  It turned out he has an old ten speed he is trying to get back together for transportation and the wheels that it had on it were in bad shape. I saw them , they were in bad shape too.   The ones I gave him look almost new so he will should have it put together by now and it be rideable again.  He was going back home to finish fixing it right after he got them.

 The yearly summer parade of kids needing tubes fixed has also already started. I has two kids come by yesterday with a bike. they got lucky as I did have a spare tube I could give them out of one of the donor bike wheels.  The next one is going to need to come with his own tube or patches as I'm all out of both at the moment and it will be a week or so till I can get another patch kit.