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How many times have I said "I'm back!"?

I seem to limp on with this project with little spurts of energy and enthusiasm every 6 months or so, and each time I do manage to get a bit of work done on the trike, I announce that "this is it!"

For this very reason, I've not mentioned anything about progress for a few weeks - just to see if its just another flash-in-the-pan of energy.

In truth, I have never lost the enthusiasm for this project.... I just seem to never have enough time.  However, the last couple of weeks have somehow gifted me some 'free' weekends (I say "free" because they come at the cost of my wife now moaning at me for being 'selfish'!  I agree with her - I am being proactively selfish, and if she is going to moan at me anyway, then the best place for me is in the garage!)

A few weeks ago Hugh came over to have a look at how things were progressing.  Over a cup of tea we debated the best position and layout for the foot pedals - I have decided to put the throttle on the handlebars, clutch on the left foot, rear brake on the the right foot, and front brake up with the throttle (there are many options, but this one felt best for me)

I desperately want to keep this machine as bare as possible, so the idea of foot rests and pegs doesn't appeal to me, even if they are practical, safe and comfortable (I am sure I will eat my words eventually, but the time being - its going to stay as simple as possible) 

Rightly or wrongly, I am utilising the original Reliant Robin foot pedals - I figured that I didn't need to reinvent the leverage ratios, and with a bit of bending and cutting & shutting, they would be perfectly acceptable to get me started.  To keep things tidy, I am keeping all the mechanics inboard of the frame..... but I do wonder if there will be a problem with some of it hanging low - is that an MOT/DVLA issue?  I am trying to keep everything above sump level.... but even so, thats pretty low!

Much to the horror of proper engineers (including TVOR) I am doing very little 'design' on this trike - I have loads of thumbnail sketches to facilitate my thinking of options, but I rarely use a measure, or make a prototype/cardboard mock up. Everything is made up on the go.  The upside to this approach is that I keep my focus on what 'feels' right, the downside is that I have had to throw away a fair amount of metal that I've welded up before realising that the idea wont work in practice - The bearing pins for the pedals is a case in point - that was a lot of wasted filing energy getting those original 1/4"discs made up, but hey ho! it was good exercise for me, and anyway I rather like the process of creating and making complicated brackets - its a shame people wont get to see the complexity of my design to hold the brake cylinder in place!

The original vehicle - Reliant Rialto GLS - was fitted with a duel master brake cylinder that mounts on an incline - its big, ugly and awkward.  So I bought a much simpler single cylinder that was advertised on ebay as a 'Reliant Brake/Clutch' cylinder.  I have fitted it, and yet have no idea if its suitable for the job.  I only need it to brake the 2 rear wheels, so I am sure it will be fine (*famous last words, as he ploughs helplessly across the busy crossroads junction*).  I have read some interesting articles about how difficult it can be to get the brakes right on a trike (so many variable to mess with), so I am preparing myself to have to experiment..... but I cant experiment until I have some practical data to work with.... so lets get it running and see what we've got.

The handbrake was another worry that I mulled over for a long time.  I wanted it to be unobtrusive, and rather fancied it at 90 degrees to the original with straight pull-rods to the rear brakes, but it was Hugh who helped me think this though and I have finally opted for using the original device on a newly make platform with very short cables - it doesn't look too bad and hopefully relatively easy to operate (i wont know until I have serviced the brakes, and even then I will need to get the cable professionally made up)

As much as I am loving doing this, I am aware that my original vision (of 'clean and simple') is slowly being compromised as I have to bolt on necessary accessories (pedals, brake handles, fuel tank, battery, electrics etc) - I have come to realise that the designers who are the real genius', are not those who make the sweeping line sketches of concepts, but those who can incorporate all the necessary mundane stuff with understated simplicity.

Next step - service the brakes, make some handlebars, think about fuel-tank and battery.  Once I have most of the bracketry tacked in the right place, I can strip the engine out, roll the frame over and weld up proper

By the way - if you are looking for special or odd sized nuts and bolts, in any manner of material, then I thoroughly recommend E.C. Pitcher in Walsall.  Thats were I got my shoulder screws for the pedal pivots

A few of my favourite photos

For me, these summarise my weekend.....

A massive thank-you for the skills, enthusiasm, support and fun, to Hugh, Jo and TVOR - i am now indebted to you and obliged to finish the project :-)

Hugh, Tim, Jo (photo by TVOR)

She Rolls!

Can you imagine how exciting it is to see your idea come to life as a real rolling chassis?
This engine, rear axel and front forks have all been bolted to my kitchen worktop jig for more than 5 years! gathering dust in my garage and buried under other projects.  And it was quite a strange feeling when we all finally agreed that she was tacked/welded together enough to release her from the jig.

With the aid of Jo's overhead lifting gear, she rose like a phoenix as one solid and complete vehicle.  It was a momentous occasion.  And then, there she was.... on her own 3 wheels.  And I could push her back and forth.
We all took turns to sit on the seat (balanced on a plank of wood) to make "vroom vroom" noises

Note - those pipes sticking out the back of the frame - they're all going to be chopped right back - I want that diff very exposed!

It was getting late in the day, and we had lots of tidying up to do yet, so there wasn't much time for self congratulations, and I quickly stripped everything off the frame so that Jo could (at his leisure over the next week or so) weld up the bits that we couldn't get to while the engine was in place.

For interest sake, the frame weighs 36 kilos (it will change a bit as i cut the tube ends off and add pedal brakets etc

We set about tidying jo's workshop up.  I was going to throw the kitchen top jig away, but Hugh suggested keeping it...... just in case he fancied making a trike too!  And who wouldn't? it is a beautiful looking thing :-)

Saw, Bend, Grind, Weld

The whole process was much slower than I had expected.  
After we had worked out and perfected our bending and fishmouth techniques, I was hoping it was going to be a simple case of "just do it!"   But it turned out that every step of the way was just as tricky as the step before.  We seemed to keep kidding ourselves that "once we've done this bit, it'll be easy!"
Nothing was 'easy', but we did have an increasing skill to sort out each problem, and I did find it increasingly more exciting to see the whole thing starting to take shape (albeit slowly)

This whole weekend was supposed to be as much a pleasure as it was to build a trike frame - and it was - but I was always slightly pressured by the ever decreasing time we had available.  I certainly didn't want to be leaving Jo on sunday evening with a half-finished frame on his bench that he couldn't move out of his way ready for work on monday morning.  And so I did feel a slight growing tension on sunday to get this thing as a rolling chassis - and yet at the same time I wanted to enjoy the chatting and cups of tea and general flopping around that you do when you are relaxed.
Jo seemed relaxed about it all, and so I tried to also.

"Good Enough"

We had previously agreed that our manta for the weekend was "Its Good Enough"
We all suffer from procrastination and wanting to do our best, and this is why our projects have been taking so long to progress.  But with some friendly nudging and jibing, we seemed to make progress simply by reminding each other now and then, "Its good enough" and "Just do it"

Fish Mouths

One of the things that i had been steeling myself for (over the past 6 years!) was the tremendous effort I was going to have to make in creating the tube joints and interfaces.  With limited facilities at home I was preparing myself for cutting and filing each tube joint by hand.  Actually, I find great pleasure in using hand tools, and I'm not bad at it either.... but man, its a slow job.
Added to this the fact that I was planning to weld this frame with my TIG welder which requires much finer fitting tolerances, I imagined that shaping the frame was going to be a log slog.

However, now down in Jo's forge with space, tools, and skills on tap, I was able to re-evaluate this whole process.
Firstly, I decided to ask Jo to do the welding for me.  He uses MIG welding (and he is good at it) - some custom bike builders scorn MIG welding as not being strong or neat enough for bike frames, but as my tubes are larger than most and my design is heavier than usual, we decided that a well executed MIG weld would be perfectly acceptable for my frame - and with Jo doing it, he would be fast, accurate and get a proper penetration.
Secondly, As MIG welding can be a little more forgiving on the fitting tolerances of the tubes (particularly heavy ones like mine) I didn't need to be so fussy about the shaping of the tube interfaces - the fishmouths.

    

There are many ways to design and make a fishmouth in a tube - including hand filing/fitting, drilling with a hole cutter, and using software to print out a cutting template.  Jo introduced me to a very simple method of 2 single straight cuts on a table saw.  There is a great explanation of this process (and much more tube fabrication information besides) on this site.  With a table saw and a hand grinder we were able to create perfectly acceptable fishmouths quickly and easily

Another important decision we made was to not try and make 2 bends in a single piece of tube - so that we wouldn't be faced with having to write off a perfectly accurate bend because we'd cocked up the second or third.  Instead we simple butt welded the single bend sections together (with the use of a tight fitting box-section stub for alignment).  This made it so much easier in the design/assembly/tacking process as we were able to rotate the bends relative to each other to create the perfect shape - and consequently reproduce the exact mirror assembly for the other side of the bike.  With Jo's expert welding on my thick tubes, we all agreed there would be no worries about the strength and integrity of the frame

Subsequent bends

After a little bit of research, it was apparent that packing sand tightly into a tube would support the tube walls during bending.  Some people use heat in the process, and some people warn against using heat.
We decided to do ours cold.
We welded an architectural steel ball into the end of the tube, inverted the tube and filled it with silver sand.  The trick in doing this is to pack the sand down as tightly as possible (we rammed, hammered and tamped with vigour).  Once completely full, we hammered another architectural ball into the open end and welded it in place.
Now our tube was ready to bend.

             

The process worked like a dream!  With a hydraulic pipe bender like this, you dont need heat.  And although I am sure that flushing the sand through with water would certainly pack the sand tighter, we found that we could hammer the sand down perfectly tight enough to give us minimal flattening during bending. 

First bend

3 men for 3 days equals a lot of manpower, thinking capacity, labour and enthusiasm (even more so when you add a good contribution from TVOR who popped in on a couple of days for moral support and sensible suggestions)
With the component parts all lined up and fixed in place we set about doing a first bend on the chassis main rail.  Jo's hydraulic bender made my own 16 tonne bender look like a childs toy.  We made a quick adapter to enable us to use my filed out die to fit his press..... and we gave it a go.

Disaster.  Even with Jo's superior mandrels, the device wasn't man enough to hold the tube taught enough to avoid flattening the tube on the bend :-(  It was getting late in the day (of our first day) and this kink in the tube, kinked our enthusiasm until Jo teased us with an idea;
"I've heard of a technique for bending tube using sand.  I've never done it myself, but I've heard about it.  I've got some sand - we could try it!"
And with that we agreed to call it a day and return tomorrow with excitement to try an experiment.

That night in bed, on my iphone, I looked for some evidence that tube could indeed be bent smoothly with the aid of sand.  And sure enough, there is a technique.... though details do seem to vary from person to person

  

We've got this far before...

But this time it's so much more pleasurable. This time I'm working on a proper work bench with lots of space.
Lining up and fixing down still took a good couple of hours

Parts all ready for assembly

There was no way I was going to get this done in my pokey little garage so we hired a van, threw all my trike bits in, and Hugh's bike too, and took it down to Jo's workshop

Its ironic that to create leisure time seems to be harder work that actually doing work!  It would certainly be an easier route to keep going to the office, doing email, and moaning that there isn't enough time for leisure activities.
It seems to require a huge amount of effort to break the pattern, and get some leisure time started.
One week ago, I was of the mood that was might easily have made me back out of our plan to work on our project bikes.  Could I really afford the time off work?  Can I really afford the money that this is going to cost me?  How on earth am I going to get all my bike parts down to Jo's forge where we planned to spend 4 days of intense metal bashing and welding.  Shouldn't I be helping my daughter open her shop?  etc etc

However, making the opportunity to have fun appears to be a bit like being a competitor in one of those strong man competitions where you have to pull a double decker bus with your bear hands.  It is almost impossible to get it started, and is only with incredible effort and strain that things start to move... and once they are moving, it gets easier... maybe to the point that actually, it's rolling on its own!

We havent started anything yet, but I am already very proud of myself for just believing that we can!

Another restart.. again.

Crivens!  Have I really let this original project slip so much??
I started this blog on November 8th 2006... over 6 years ago!  At the time I thought I was going to build a Trike within a year for less than a grand...... How nieve can a man be?
Reading back on some of my older posts, it looked like I made a good start - sourced lots of the parts, and prepared to create a rather neat looking frame..... but somehow, things seem to have got in the way and despite numerous blog posts stating "A new start", or "We're back", or "This time I really, really will finish this - promise!", I just haven't made any real progress beyond laying the parts out to look like a trike with an invisible frame.
I'm not proud of my poor performance, but in my defence, I have in the interim years rebuilt a Vespa scooter (and riden it to Italy and South of France), nearly completed the resurrection of a 1958 French Manurhin scooter, and bought myself a Royal Enfield 500 efi electra Bullet.
However, the Trike has never been totally forgotten - I still love the idea of creating my own machine, and much to my astonishment I am about to make a major step forward with this project.

For the past few years, around about october, I've taken off for a long weekend with a couple of friends, Hugh and Jo - the general idea is to do something fun and stay in a B&B so we can take the opportunity to have 'one more beer' than we might otherwise have if we were driving.  We didn't get the chance to do it last october, and we missed it, and so it was while sitting over a beer (only one this time, as we were driving) that we came up with the brilliant idea of taking a long weekend of not only having fun, but also helping each other make some progress with our respective dust-gathering projects...... and wouldn't be fun if we could actually get them on the road ..... and ride them to a rock festival? ;-)  We put a date in our diaries there and then.  And that date has finally crept up on us!