Reliant Rubber Fetish

The last time i was in the garage, it was to drive the stripped down car in there just after our day of fun chopping it up and driving it like loonies up and down our road. The next time i went in it was to make a big commitment - to rip the life and soul out of the sad little car. As I drained the water system, it felt like i was bleeding it to death. Anyway, i soon forgot about all that nonsence and had a thoroughly good time stripping out the final bits and exposing the engine. I had to make a couple of choices on the way; ones that i hope i wont live to regret, like not bothering to mark up any of the wiring loom (Im thinking that im going to start from scratch with the loom)
Removing the final bits of engine bay and firewall (do plastic reliants have firewalls??) were tougher than id thought, but nothing that a panel saw, tin cutters and jemmy bar couldnt handle.
So after an enjoyable 3 hours, I was left with an engine sitting in a chassis AND A MILE AND A HALF OF RUBBER PIPE. Where on earth did all that hose come from? and more to the point where am i going to put it all when i put the engine in a trike frame?

Always thinking...

I wouldnt want anyone to think that ive got nothing better to do.... but I really dont have anything better that I'd rather be doing.

Lego I thought was a little childish to be using to design a serious work of art, so instead I am experiementing with Meccano :-)

3D modeling

Ive noticed that im not taking much notice of anything non-trike. I sit in meetings sketching out swooping lines that connect a rear axle to a headstock with an engine slung in between, I pretend im typing really important things while im browsing ebay for petrol tanks and I dont hear conversations as i dream of prize winning paint jobs.
However this all said, I havent told many people about this project yet - i wouldnt want people to think that the project is distracting me from things im supposed to be doing.
So with this in mind, I had to wait for all my collegues to go home before I could get the Lego out and "model" up a vision for my Trike (dont ask why we have Lego at work!). I guess that if i had to wait for everyone to go home, technically I was doing this in my own time..... but its the dreaming that they cant see me doing during the day :-)
Lego and pipe cleaners seem to be not a bad way of experimenting with 3-dimentional flowing lines. Its important to note that these pictures represent but one style - there are many more to explore yet before final decisions are made.

its in the blood

So heres the proven formula for "a proper boys project"

A proper boys project = boys (>1, <5), add 1 knackered car, minus all bodywork, times by many goes around the garden, divide the whole fun amongst the boys.

The Voice of reason sent me this picture of him and Don (both now 70 years old) doing exactly what we are doing now 55 years on. Im not sure what the car is, but when you look at the smiles on their faces, who really cares - mind you I wouldn't mind a set of those wheels :-). I wonder who took the photo? could it have been TVOR's own dad?

I think it certainly makes a difference to have a freind to share the fun with. Long may it last :-)

We make art not cars

I offered some of the redundant parts from my donor car to the chap that i was buying the wheels from. He politely declined saying that i would uderstand when i arrived to collect the wheels. I soon got the picture when i arrived at his house with what must have been 40 reliant cars in his garden - he certainly didnt need any of my stuff as well.
As you can imagine, a man with 40 reliants in his garden, knows a thing or two about..... reliants. Paul is certainly a guy worth knowing while building a trike, and he put me onto a great web forum - www.r3w.co.uk (where i am now registered as spideytim) Paul appears to be regularly on the forum offering advice, so look out for his id Nipperred (which incidently is also his ebay name - and guess what he sells a lot of on ebay?)
So I got the wheels home and couldnt resist trying them out for size. this is now my favourite seat in the house.... and interestingly, the wife hasn't commented yet. A closet biker-babe??

250 quid of fun

We all agreed (even the kitchen fitter who seemed to spend more time with us and the car than the kitchen and the carcasses) that it was better than sex. It might have cost me £250, but it worked for all 3 of us AND it lasted for 5 hours.
What fun we had today. I dont want to focus too much on the fact that today was all about destruction, but it was nice to spend the day without having to worry too much about details. Certainly we had to plan and take care, but we didnt have to worry about anything, and that is pure pleasure.
There truly is nothing like seeing the moving bits of a car exposed as you drive along with very little holding the whole vehicle togther. And im still amazed at how easy it was to start despite having the loom chopped through at all 4 corners.
Only slight disapointment was that despite cutting the exhaust pipe off at the manifold, the engine still sounded like a pussy cat (perhaps with a sore throat) - maybe I will need to think about some sort of sound box/ bomb thing on the final machine - so its loud enough to annoy the neighbours ;-)

The signs were right

Im not supposed to be doing anything on my new project until ive finished all the odd jobs around the house, But all the planets were in alignment today and I really had no choice. Firstly, despite "severe weather" warnings, the sun was out and the wind had dropped. Secondly Dad (AKA as TVOR, now AKA Trevor) was in town. Thirdly, the 3 ladies in my life were out shopping all day. And besides, I HAD done a couple of my chores, so i deserved a little R&R.
I had a plan... To drive the reliant up and down our road once, get it back on the drive out side the house, chop as much body away as I dare, and then drive it up and down again in as minimum state as possible. Once we'd all had our spin (she does drive nicely) to help Hughie and TVOR understand my plan I drew out the cutlines on the plastic body and with a couple of panel saws, a hacksaw and a 4lb club hammer we all set about the poor old reliant with vigour and enthusiasm.
Its amazing how quickly and easily you can chop fibreglass panels away - which was useful because I was keen to get the scrap to the tip before it shut at 4pm. ... and what a lot of scrap we produced. Thank heaven for the offer of some skip space for the big bits from a nieghbour else I'd never have got it all to the tip by the end of the day.

wheely good

oh, were cooking on gas now. When I bought the front end, I worried about where i would get the car from. When I bought the car I worried about where i would get the wheels from. So today i bought some wheels!
The wheels are actually quite important to the design and build, because they will effect the rear axle height which in turn (if im having a minimum length - if at all prop-shaft) dictates the engine height and then the fork rake etc etc.
The concern that has been keeping me awake at night is what sort of wheels should i go for? style? price? diameter? hub adapters? Standard Reliant wheels are 10" dia with 4 x 4" PCD studs - there are some alternative wheels to fit this spec ( http://www.bikerlifestyle.co.uk/tech/pcd/pcd.htm has a comprehensive list of wheel sizes ) but I was begining to worry about how long the hunt might be for some oddball / good looking wheels.
However, I should have known really - these worries soon work thenselves out and work itself out it did tonight. A casual check on ebay turned up these beauties. a quick phone call to hughie to get his opinion and £125 later, they are all mine (still got to worry about how to pick them up from Cambridge, but thats the easy bit) I think they should look quite fabulous on my cool machine.
So my grand total so far now stands at £535 (I think that should cover quite nicely the fuel tank, frame material, lights, seat and those tassel'y things that hang from the ends of the handlebars :-)

Wisdom wins

The great thing about having a team of diverse thinkers with you on a project is twofold. Firstly, as a collective we can cover all angles and create some very novel ideas from the combinations of our different perspectives. Secondly (and perhaps most usefully for me as the captain of this ship) when decisions need to be taken, I can choose the advice that aligns most with the thoughts i already had in my head ..... and still feel as if ive listened to other views :-)
I am really liking the wisdom of my grandfather - "leave well alone and get on with all the other things that needed doing", and that of TVOR - "leave it alone until it stops doing what you want it to". And I think the photo proves that TVOR has got some car time and wisdom on his clock.

And so I am happy to progress and get the car stripped without getting the emissions checked. Afterall, I embarked on the project to enjoy doing the bits that I enjoy doing - and i like taking things apart!

Motivation

There is nothing like an oily project in the wings to motivate a man to finish off all those around-the-house-chores. I have ticked off so many things from my to-do list today, I have amazed myself :-)
I was up with the lark this morning to fit shelves, clean cupboards, fit electrical sockets, plaster cracks..... and still have time to go and choose settees with the wife. I have truly been a busy boy. And now I am begining to wonder if this was all in the wifes master-plan when she gave my project the nod. Did she know all along that once i had the car in the garage, teasingly calling my name, that i'd be desperate to get all other jobs done around the house so that i could be free to do my thing?
Clever things, wives. Clever

What to do next??

So now what?
Ive had a great day, and ive now got a Reliant robin sitting in my garage.
Ive thrown out any thought now of insuring it and driving it around for a while, this will only serve to delay the project and so Im keen to get stripping the thing down to the bits i actually need. Also, getting rid of the body and front end will free up some space in my now stuffed garage.
Hughie thinks I should take the car first to have the emissions checked on the engine, so that if need be i can strip and rebuild the engine before i build the frame. I am more of the opinion, lets just get on with the trike build, and whne it comes to the test, if i have to rework the engine then, so be it. That said though, having had a flick through my Haynes manual tonight I wonder if it might be a pleasent exersice to strip the top half of the engine anyway and at least check the valves and the like.
I wonder what Dad (The Voice of Reason - TVOR) will have to say on the subject?
Oh I shall sleep well tonight!

You cant help but smile :-D

We drove up to manchester in my Renault Megane; we took the motorway, it took 1.5 hours. We came home in two cars, The Renault and The Reliant; we took the back roads, it took 3 hours. Actually i think 3 hours wasnt bad with a car we had no idea about. We had walkie talkies so that we could kep in touch and Hugh quickly felt that 45mph felt comfortable, so 45/50 was the pace we set.
We had no idea if any of the instruments worked and so pitting in a couple of gallons of fuel was a high priority (if we were going to break down, it would be a shame if it were because we forgot to put in petrol - far better it would be if a wheel fell off or engine caught fire or something) Hugh was worried about the non-starting so we refueled with the engine running - i dont think youre supposed to do that are you?
There was a moment as we drove through Congleton when we both felt our arses tighten at the sight of not one but 3 staggered police vehicles. Although Hugh was insured, the car isnt taxed or tested - but we had our story worked out that we were taking the car for an MOT, which in a way was true, but not actually this week.
Other than the police - who really werent interested in a middle-aged bloke driving a beige 22 year old reliant robin, the journey was suprisingly uneventful. The car ran sweet, and the sun shone on us. With the exception of 2 3-minute stops (one with engine still running while Hugh peed in the bushes, and one with an accidental stall that soon started with a bump - it is a very light car to push :-) the car ran continually for the 3 hours! Fantastic.
I was a little concerned for Hughie sitting in that cramped little car - the drivers seat had collapsed - but as he got used to the car, and the country roads opened out a bit, and he decided to do a bit of racing, I got the sense that maybe he was perhaps actually enjoying this "agricultural" drive. The pictures say it all :-D

Some might say "foolish"

When i asked the chap earlier in the week if he thought the car would be safe enough to drive from Manchester back to Birmingham, he said "Oh yes". When Hughie and I arrived this morning expecting to drive it away, the chap was a little suprised - "I didn't think you actually would!" - so i suppose he felt he ought to let us know that the top rad hose was perished and despite his patching up, was peeing water. There was only one thing for it - off to the local autostore for a bit of hose pipe that we we managed to fit while our man made us a cup of tea. So, once that was fitted, and we'd finished our tea and id paid my £230 - (I threw in the extra 8 in return for the "trotters independent traders" valeting pack that came with the car) - what else was there to do but drive the thing home?!
We'd decided that Hugh would drive it as he is covered by his general car insurance - well he "said" he was covered and whilst i did wonder if he really did, I was very grateful and prepared myself as support team in my own car

Things werent looking too good as Hughie found it wouldnt even start!... and we hadnt even left this blokes drive yet! But we bumped it down his drive, it started and we were on off on our 100 mile trip home

Quote

"We could hardly wait to get up in the morning." -- Wilbur Wright
:-D

why is it that our minds seem to always be one step ahead of the current challenge? there might be a risk that we are missing the pleasure of being in the present as we spend our thinking time in the future. Im supposed to be working out how to get this car home to Birmingham (which i have to say isn't as easy / cheap as you'd think) and I cant stop myself from thinking about interesting design details - for instance in the school governors meeting last night i was designing the graphics for on the fuel tank!.... and Hughie appears to be spending his work time just as productively.....
Hughie (who for the record is a thouroughly nice chap and not as "dark" as i might have earlier portrayed him to be ;-) sent me an email from work today and it appears that hes doing as much thinking about this project as i am. Just to juice up some of the thinking, here are some of the notes from his client meeting......
- completely clutter free handlebars so that means no levers and an internal throttle mechanism on the RHS
- the clutch lever incorporated in the gearstick
- Pegs or running boards for the feet?
- custom mustang tank. Problem is that everyone is looking for mustang tanks to build specials so it's more difficult to find a bargain. I've also been thinking about making a fuel tank from something else ie fire extinguisher, lorry brake reservoir, small beer keg etc but then you hit the problem of attaching a filler neck and cap and fuel tap. All hassle and additional cost. So I would be leaning towards finding a mustang tank at the right price myself.

So there is so much to think about, im not sure ive got enough time to go to work anymore

Oh bugger! ive bought the car that i want... but its one hundred miles away. How on earth am i going to get it home? As far as i can see it ive got 3 options
1. Hire a trailer and find a vehicle that can tow it home
2. get a bit of rope and tow it home on the back of my own car
3. book an MOT in birmingham and drive the robin back myself - and then if im close enough to home without being stopped by the police, simply pop it in my garage and cancel the MOT. I must say i rather fancy the idea of hitch-hiking up to manchester paying a bloke a couple of hundered of quid and driving his unknow entitiy back home - but i can some the risks involved in this option and i dont have the same dare-devil attitude that i had when i was 18.
And then theres the budget - damn that budget....... Ive had an insurance quote from Adrian Flux for £98 fully comp - which is pretty good seeings as i claimed off them for my stolen Beach Buggy a couple of years back. Or i could hire a trailer at £78 from Gordon Love Trailers - but i have to collect it friday night and return it on monday morning, and seeings as i dont have a car with a tow bar I'd have to convince someone else to take on the hassle.
I have taken some advice from Hughie who thinks towing on a rope would be too much of a drag (excuse the pun) and bearing in mind the budget limits, maybe its worth risking driving home without insurance. This latter option i really couldnt do.
I havent consulted Dad on this one, but i think i can guess what his position might be.
And so i shall "incubate" on this predicament. But whatever i do - it has to happen on Saturday :-)

Ive just spent a lovely weekend with some freinds learning about "mindfulness meditation" as a method of reducing stress - how luck am I to be invited to learn this stuff?
In a but shell, mindfulness is all about being present and attentive to the now - you can learn more about it at www.mbsr.co.uk I really liked it because it wasnt too frilly and fluffy and is something you can practice in amongst your normal busy and down to earth life.
But what has this got to do with building a Trike? well funny you ask that......
One of the great causes of stress is the way we tend to elaborate thoughts into "facts" and this weekend of meditation made it so clear to me how i unconsciously allow my mind to take a grip of my world which amazingly manefests in my physical wellbeing too! And having won the reliant on ebay on Friday night at a good price I found myself wondering why no-one else was pushing the bidding further?, and why had it been "relisted"?, and why did the "timewaster" that forced the relisting not take the car away? was there something about this car that i didnt know? etc etc. and before i knew it i had "invented" in my mind that this car was actually a write off and i was being suckered by an unscrupulous trader - he probably didnt even have the documents for the vehicle - this evil person was clearly planning to rip me off!
..... and then i learnt about mindful meditation and realised (and it seems obvious when i talk about it now) just how much of our thinking is pure fantasy and elaboration - and as a result a major cause of stress.
And so i took stock of my thoughts, my emotions and my bodily sensations - grounded myself back in the present, and calmed myself back to reality....... all i really know at the moment is that ive just bought the car that i want at the price i want - and im happy with that!

well would you belive it.... one moment im moaning about the price of reliants, the next moment Im in the running for one on my own! Ive just won a BEIGE 1984 RELIANT RIALTO GLS ESTATE - WooHoo :-) and the best thing is, i got it for a nice neat £222.
I wont sleep tonight as my mind drifts between excitement and concern for why no-one else wanted it!
So thats £402 spent now - thats nearly 600 quid left for frame, tyres and tax disc holder :-)

Hmmm, so in my head ive designed the seat and the engine cooling system - but i havent yet got a donor car. I really want to get an engine on the garage floor so i can get a sense of scale and layout of the 4 key items... Front end, Engine/gearbox lump, rear axel and rider.
I really do need a Robin Reliant
I thought the buggers would be ten-a-penny, after all who wants second-hand robin reliant - well as it turns out quite a few people actually. you can drive them on a motor bike licence, they have a 60+ fuel consumption. And it also appears that im not the only person loking to build a reliant based Trike. For the past 4 weeks ive been watching all the Reliants on ebay and what i thought would be easy pickings actually turns out to be a bit of a competition.
I dont want to really pay more than £300 for the car (after all im throwing most of it away - or selling it back on ebay?) and i'd quite like a runner, and wouldn't it be great if it had a MOT so that i could drive it around for a bit for a laugh..... but maybe Im being a bit hopeful at that.
I reckon if i was willing to pay £600, I'd have no problem in getting a good donor vehicle, but damnit, that one grand budget limit is going to test me.
No doubt something will come along, but in the meantime i will have to satisfy myself with sketching out indicator brackets and radiator mounts

I was on the road for 5.30am - it was like christmas morning, i was so excited. So you can imagine my deflation when i switched on my mobile phone and recieved a voice mail from Hughie from the night before giving me a couple of warnings about knackered front ends - weeping seals, out of line forks etc - it hadnt even occured to me that there might be a reason why this front end was being sold off seperately from the rest of the bike; apparently a usual reason is that its been in a pile up! So I spent the rest of my 4 hour journey to the sellers house now doubting that i was doing the right thing!
My doubts were soon blown away when i was wheeling the thing out of Shauns house, £180 lighter. Theyre off a Kawasaki VN1500. Theyre not the 6 foot long chopper springers i'd wanted, but they look long enough and theyve got a speedo, headlamp, good tire, possible handlebars AND most importantly it fits within my budget.
And that leads me onto another thought. My cost of travel to collect this part is not actually part of the build cost, but it does eat into my potential budget. My target is to build the trike for no more that £1000..... should i account for incidental expenses as well? The wife would say yes, but I say..... lets keep two account books! So Ive spent £180. That leaves me with £820 left for the project. Oh yes and it did cost me nearly £40 and a good part of a day to pick them up, but thats not nearly as interesting as the shiney thing that now sits in my own garage - NOW the project has started :-)

In my mind it was always going to be a 1600 V-Dub Trike. I love the way that flat 4 hangs out the back with so much potential to show off the shiney bits, and being new to the world of bikes and trikes I didnt even realise there was an alternative to the VW for a trike base.

Oh there so much to learn
Ive opened a door to a world ive never known

Hughie thinks it should be a Reliant based Trike. Reliant!? as in Robin Reliant!? Im trying to build a work of art here, and hughie thinks it should be based on a reliant.
Let me investigate.
Ooh, thats interesting! thats quite a nice exposed rear axel.... quite a noce shaped engine and gearbox too. Maybe beneath that all that plastic the Robin has something to offer my project. And it might even benefit my tight budget.

Now im pretty relaxed about nuts and bolts things. I can get by with most things nutty and bolty, and ive done a few car projects so the idea of the backend of a Trike doesnt scare me, but the front end looks like a motor-bike, and ive never had one of those. My mum would never allow it when i was a kid and my wife would never allow it when i was a grown up, so when i start to think about where and what do i do for a front end I come out in a cold sweat. And so I turn to Hughie again.
Hughie is a motorbike man, hes always had a bike, in fact hes always had several. Hughie knows about bikes, and more than that, he knows about me and we work well together - he knows how to motivate me and so I needed him on my trike team. Hughie is now chief of front end and all things encouraging. However, Hughie alone is not enough. Hughie has a dark side that might bias my progress. Hughie is the man who in order to quickly sell a motor many years ago, patched up a cracked cylinder head with araldite! An attitude like this could severely compromise the integrity of my project, and so a third member of the team is required, A voice of reason, a counter to Hughies shortcuts and my over enthusiasm..... bring on Dad.
Dad is Dad. A man of many talents and engineer extrodinaire - his dock-yard apprentiship was designed to enable a man to create or repair anything that a man might encounter out at sea (the content of this expertese i need none for my decidedly land loving work of art. But the skills, the skills I need)
And so the team is complete. the project is mine, the finacial investment is mine, the creative final say is mine, but the journey and adventure are ours to share. And share we do, that dream of the first start up and first smell of warming engine paint :-)

It started 44 years ago, and ive been slowly plodding my way to a midlife crisis ever since.
It started 30 years ago when I drove my first stripped down chassis with my Dad
It started 6 months ago when I saw i was going to be having some time on my hands
It started 6 weeks ago when Hughie thought it was a brilliant idea

Build a Trike. 6 months, £1000. Ride it for summer 2007 and sell it for no less than £1200.
Hughie and I sat in the Corks jazz club in Bearwood http://www.bearwoodjazz.co.uk/ with the other 50 or so people who also didnt realise how lucky they were to have such an unspoilt run-down of a club available to them. I was explaining to Hughie just how much i wanted another motor project now that my studying was coming to an end; how i wanted to get my fingers oily again. I was explaining how now that my garage was so much smaller than the one i used to have, a full blown 4 wheel project was out of the quesion.... but perhaps a 3 wheel project was possible. Afterall i managed to build a 2CV 3-wheeled Lomax in a small garage all those years ago. And because I'd really enjoyed having the V-dub based Manta Ray beach-buggy, maybe what i really needed now was a V-dub based 3 wheeler - A Trike.
As we sat listneing to Andy Hamilton sax his best, I shaped some beer mats to illustraite my point to Hughie that despite never having riden a motorbike or owned a trike, i clearly was the best trike stylist there ever was. In my opinion, Trike builders kind of miss the point- its not about building a vehicle, its about creating a work of art - and i was the man to do it!
Hughie bought it (and another beer) and made me promise to do it. And so the talking started

How exciting! Ive made my first comittment for this project. Now i can truly say that im doing it, no more talking, Im doing the walking. well, OK maybe the real comittment comes tomorrow when i actually part with the money.
Ive been on tenderhooks all day wondering if these were the right ones - how should I know, I dont really know one end of a motorbike to the other, though when I drempt about these ones last night I kinda guessed I was on to the right thing and when Hughie gave me the nod via email tonight it was all go.
My Trike project starts now