Some progress on the trike, small steps. I made a stencil of the area on the bike that we're using to attach the rear sub-frame too. Transferred that shape to 3mm MSteel and cut out the LHS plate, some rough shaping and a 16mm hole. Fits ok, but still needs some more shaping and mounting holes drilled. The stencil transfers to the RHS with a little bit of allowance to be made for jiggly poke poke fitting.
From these two plates will be welded the connection points for the new swing arm pivot point.
RHS stencil on bike.jpg
LHS Stencil steel.jpg
LHS Mounting1.jpg
This is what I'm aiming to replicate:
LHS subframe.jpg
CAD. My preferred method as well..
Cardboard Assisted Design
Stencil board......living up to its name! I was introduced to it 20 plus years ago and I still use it to make one off parts. Quicker then designing it on the PC and leaves plenty of room for fudging..LOL
So there has been some progress, spent they day doing some fab work.
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20191215_214134[1].jpg
We splashed out and bought a new Pipe bender,
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and I had some bits floating around so I made a manual press brake to fold 3mm plate,
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Some more progress, and some backwards steps.
We purchased a new, smaller, diff to use but I soon realized my mistake in not thoroughly checking out the ratio's available for the crown wheel and pinion. Of course this was AFTER I had stripped, cut, shortened and re welded it. The diff currently has a 5.57:1 ratio gear set in it and I was of the understanding I could purchase aftermarket sets to change the ratio to around 2.6:1 as per the original bike rear end........but the housing is so small the gear set needed to get that ratio is too large to fit in the housing and therefore not manufactured in any way shape or form..... So I have gone back to my original diff housing with a gear set in it that is 2.9:1. The reason for purchasing the smaller housing was to reduce the weight and improve the handling, but they are now things that will be compromised to a degree by using the original housing I had.
I purchased a tube notching tool to speed up the process of fitting pipes together at differing angles as I was over spending 2 or 3 hours a weekend grinding and fitting pipe.(as were the neighbors) A tedious task that I wasn't happy about doing, made much faster and easier.
I had to modify one of the new tube bender former's as it was over sized and kinked the pipe during bending instead of 'forming' it neatly. The 20mm former was 2mm over sized which dosen't sound like much but allowed the pipe to expand sideways during bending and that caused the pipe to crush and kink. It needs to be held snugly by the former at all times through the whole process so I scrounged some 0.9mm metal sheet from the scrap bin at work and shimmed the former on both sides. Problem solved.
I have formed, fitted and fully welded both the LH and RH lower chassis mounts and got them bolting up nicely with the chassis and I have dug out the original diff housing that I had begun to narrow and got it set up for welding, so that will happen in the next few weeks.
Onwards!
I will post up some pictures of the finished Chassis mounts soon, I have to resize them (the pic's) and I can't be arsed at the moment. Too much to do and not enough Nade to go round.
Heres a BUELL to look at
30063_0_1_4_xb12scg lightning_Image credits - Buell.jpg
Here is some pictures to show the mounts and the welding of the narrowed diff.
lower mounts.jpg
Diff Set Up.jpg
TIG Root Run.jpg
Flux Core diff.jpg
I have made some rear upper mounts for the rear tray/ suspension cross bar and dummy fitted it for the moment.
I have sourced some Drag Link Bar bushes that I want to use in the swing arm, just waiting on the finance department to get the barbed wire out of her pockets so she can open the wallet.
I will take some more photo's of the assembly as it is now, not much to look at but believe me there is many hours of thinking and tinkering to get things to work.....there is a pile of '1st attempts' and 'version 2' slowly accumulating.
So I thought it might be time to update this a little bit.
I've been banging my head against a brick wall for a while with re-guards to a Certifier. I'm so far away from the nearest one's that they have not been willing to engage in the process, and this pissed me off. I forged on ahead with the build, over thinking alot, re-doing parts over and over until I was satisfied with them.
so now I'm at the point of really needing a certifier to be onboard so I can finish the damn thing. Hopefully I have a guy who will do it but he asked me leave it till the new year.....its the 1st of Jan 2021.....is it too early to annoy him yet!?
I have some more photos of bits and pieces to share, so progress is being made......slowly slowly.
I also splashed out and bought a new Bench lathe and new TIG welder for home, so no more taking bits to work to finish them or having to wait until I am at work to do things.
20200408_201026.jpg rear subframe being bent and fitted ready for welding off.