Our Trike Project
 

Swindon MAG's Trike Project - for Matthew.

Hi, I've always wanted a trike and being mechanically impaired. i.e. not a clue about the in's and out's of bikes I needed a lot of help.

Starting off I needed a bike so I spoke to our crew and they suggested that our own rep, Bryan, had a bike going spare. So after a chat and visit to Bryan's place I bought the VX800 and was then ready to start the project. This is where I encountered my next two problems. I didn't have any transport to collect the bike and I also don't own a garage to build or store the bike/trike. First things first, a little chat to Ian to borrow his van and then a garage loan from Robbo. Once this was arranged we collected the bike from Bryan's and dropped it off at Robbo's.

Next thing was to get a rear axle. After speaking to another friend I found out that he had, of all things, a reliant axle sat on his farm. His idea was to make a go-kart out of it but this was a failed project. So £30 later I had myself an axle, if not very dirty but still an axle and a start. I got Scottie to deliver it to my place and I set about cleaning and painted the axle in my shed ready for taking to Robbos.

 

 Then came the problem of transportation again. With myself not owning a car this was always going to be an interesting project when is comes to collecting bits. John Offered the use of his Spitfire, so collection was made and the bike and axle met each other.

 

 The next task was to take the rear wheel out and get the bike ready to match up to the reliant axle. To make sure that the bike was going to still stand up we ran a metal tube under the exhaust systems (VX has two, one each side) and held the bike up on axle stands supplied by John. Here is a picture of Robbo and the VX without the rear wheel.

I then found that I needed a prop shaft for the axle as this did not come with the axle only a set of 13" tyres.


I thought this was going to be a fairly easy task, so I hit the net looking for parts. After searching ebay and hundreds of online breakers I then hit the Thompson's local, Yellow pages, John & Julian (not hard!), 267 breakers later.....I found one. John had also found one that would fit from a herald car from his mate Paul who restores old cars. A trip to Gloucester was needed, again I needed a lift I found out that a work colleague. was going to Birmingham to deliver some goods, he offered me a lift. An early 5am start and we were off to Gloucester via Birmingham. Twigworth breakers was our destination and a very friendly and well-organised place it was. £5 for a hand brake lever and £30 for the prop shaft.
I was surprised at how little of the prop we actually needed for the trike, after all that searching I only needed the flange, U-J and about 5 inches of the prop.

I then needed some mild steel tube for connecting the bikes swing arm to the rear axle. So I got Julian to order me some, being in the trade it was easier. Here is Julian eyeing up the "mess we've made"...
 

Next plan was that to be able to get the rear axle inline we needed to remove the exhaust system, here is Julian welding a jig in place under the bike to hold it up.

We removed the axle stands and the exhausts and put the axle in place on the axle stands to see what it would look like. Here is John and Robbo doing just that, Remember I get the easy job of taking pictures..!!
 

You might be thinking, Heh what happened to the Jig? all I can see is a pile of wood under that bike!!. Well the jig failed so we had to resort to good old wood. The next job was to match up the prop to the axle joint. This meant cutting into the bikes swing arm and using Julian's and Ian's tools so that is just what they did. Here is the swing arm (what's left of it) and the reliant prop together with the existing VX shaft.

Right then next job bending some pipe, again using Julian's tools we bent and cut some pipe into two pieces to connect onto the swing arm and onto the axle. Julian Bent up one then I had a go bending the other side. To be able to weld these two pipes onto the axle Julian got friend to make up some plates, good idea, so if we ever have to replace the axle at any point the whole thing just bolts on and off. Here is a picture with the pipe bent and tacked into place on the swing arm and the axle plates. Also one of Julian doing some welding, something I cannot do.... Yet!!

Next thing was to get the rear end into a welding garage and use a proper MIG welder to get the job done solidly, after an offer of £20 to professionally weld the parts up Julian took the swing arm to his mates in Gloucester. We got the swing arm back from Gloucester and paid Julian for the job. We put the arm in place.

This next bit is a bit of a rush as I have been so busy with the project that I haven't kept this upto date very well. Its been about 3 Months

After the swing arm was back Julian took a back seat as his 'heavy handed' part was done and it was time for John's "engineering" part to begin. This was also the time that the project started to go very slowly due to not having the correct tools at Robbos garage. The major problem was meeting on Thursdays to build the trike we ran into things like making the mud guard brackets meant that we had to measure them bend them take them to John's for cutting down (1 week) then weld tacking them together for John to take them away and weld them together (2nd week). Then add a plate to attach them onto the rear axle bolt plates (3rd week) Drill holes into the tops to attach the mud guards (4th week)....Basically it was taking too long. A very hard decision was made by John to take the trike round to his place to get the trike finished of using his tools quicker. He didn't have enough room as his garage was full of bikes and his Spitfire.

John was kind enough to put the hard top on the spitfire and park it outside for a week or so while we finish the trike.

Getting the trike from Robbo's to Johns was an interesting one. We enlisted the help of Ian again with his van and Mark 1 came round to help (we have 3 marks !!) The fun part was Mark 1 guiding Ian around the back of robbos house. Ian has a small van and still he had about 2mm on each side !! It took half an hour of reversing and moving 2mm to get the van back out. !!

Once around John's we were ready to fire into the project.

Next on the shopping list was wheels. After lots of searching I bought a pair of alloys from ebay with the idea of getting some tryes to suit. However on arrival the auction was for one alloy not two. I had bidded on the wrong auction on Ebay. There was a listing for two alloys and a listing for one. Stupid me. So back onto ebay it went, luckily I sold it for the same price as I bought it for.

Robbo still being part of the project rang to say that there was an advert in the paper for 4 Vaxhaull vectra wheels. Not the ideal size for the trike but I'm getting to the point that I wanted it on the road asap and I wasn't to bothered that the trike was going to the under geared by 13%. I could always change the wheels later. It means the trike will do about 80/90mph and not 120mph, I can live with that.

So another trip using John's Spitfire this time to have a look at the wheels. We met a fairly old chap who opened his garage to a whole host of wheels. Infact he owned about 3 or 4 garages full or old sorts, typical council estate.

After a rumage around we found some that we liked and also in good nick when a boy racer metro came screeching around the corner music blazing out and a couple of spotty teenagers jumped out. It turned out that the side ways baseball cap wearing teenager owned the wheels and the old chap was his father. I asked how much for the 4 wheels and the teenager said (almost in a cockney guv'nor accent) "well I advertised them for 50 quid mate" before the father cut him off and said £40, before the son could argue, money was exchanged with the father and myself. The young teenager kinda kicked the ground before jumping back into his car and speeding off.

Right next challange 4 vaxhaull vectra wheels, 2 blokes and a spitfire. Just a bit of a squeeze. We got two in the boot one behind the seats and one in my lap and face.

So having the wheels sorted it meant that the trike was coming together and now rolling ! horray !. With so much to do John plodded on during the day which is something else that we couldn't do round robbo's. John got the shocks mounted then decided that the VX shocks were complete shot so he's lending me some harley ones till I get some decent ones sorted. Also John got the handbrake welded on and fixed in place. I quite like the "Relient £5" so i'm going to leave that on there. Ian came round and supplied a length of copper so that the brake cable can slide through to make up the handbrake. Also in Ian's spare time, i had found a lump of steel bar on Ebay for the prop shaft (to get a professional prop balencer to balence my prop and secure it to the relient prop shaft cost £100) so Ian drilled out the middle of the bar (i'm told it wasn't easy) then welded the prop into the bar, welded lugs onto the bar to fit into the relient prop. Then to fix in place he drilled a hole into the relient prop, into the bar inside and welded them together on both sides as well as around the top. It sounds a lot (Ian will vouch for this) but its needed to make sure it says together.

So when i wasn't busy workng i found myself around john's as much as possible to get things done. My first job was to paint the mud guard brackets and the mudguards. Painting is not my fortay. Infact i'm crap. So when i got a few laughs from the amount of run lines on the mud guards i was not at all supprised. After we got them painted we attached some lights that again i got from Ebay for £10. Ebay is such a handy place for parts. The lights came from a company that sells to a trailer company. Whilst waiting for the paint to dry Bryan came around to chat and take a look at the progress. After again laughing at my paint job. He asked what else was needed to do. I suggested to take a look at the brake drums as the axle had been standing for anything between 5-10 years on a farm. To our shock and horror we found that the brake shoes were completly worn down and even worse they were covered in engine oil. ! Not oil from the diff but engine oil. So a complete set new braking system parts needed. Another £40 and i have a set of brake shoes, brake cilynders & some brake fluid. John had hurt his back by this time so i had fun stripping down the brakes and cleaning and then re-assembling them with new parts.

With all the parts in place its coming together. Here is a picture of the trike and me. ! (I don't usually get into pictures, I just take them)
 

24/08/2006 I have an update to the trike story. After I took the trike for its MOT and DVLA inspection it did 4 miles fully road legal. The engine then decided to throw a piston through the front case. So i have been trying to rebuild the engine since June 2005. This is where I fell into a problem of finding a new engine to fit into the trike. Another 200 breakers later i found an engine in Sheffield. Another ask from Jeff and the works van and we were off to pay and collect not an engine, as i had hoped, but a whole bike. I then stripped the engine out from what i now call VX-No.2 and I took it round to Johns to put into the trike.

We then encountered a problem of the fuel pump dying so we stole one from VX-No.2. We then found out that the valves were worn as great plumes of fuel was being passed back through the carbs and were flooding the air boxes. So i then learnt the pleasure of a very long and boring job of valve grinding, This took another 3 months. I then Took the fresh valves and new valve guide seals along with engine seals around to John.  John has recently kindly offered to help me reassemble the engine as i have now met a girl and am otherwise engaged if you get my meaning. No really I got engaged.....So with plans of moving house marriage and such like things got put on hold for a while. With me now looking at moving house very soon i have stripped the trike down into pieces ready to move it to new pastures. Here is what it now looks like.