Manky Monkey Motors

Hi All.My bro has offered me his Kwak 750 Vulcan for using as a trike via a bolt on. 13k on the clock and in decent nick. Anyone any thoughts on the suitabilty of this for that? Looks like a nice machine, but I know nowt!

I built a vn750 trike,it was really good,a good strong engine,sounded a bit like a Harley depending what pipes you use,i had to get rid of the exhaust collecter box as it was in the way,and with it being low sling it was a really comfortable ride.go for it.

yeah go for it andy  ;D

Not a great fan of bikes being converted using a bolt on, but the frame looks to be strong enough (perhaps strengthen the swing arm mounts).
Keep this one light  (no using great big car seats  ;D) and go for it.

Thanks for the replies guys. I am getting itchy to get out there, so this seems like a relatively quick way to get rolling while the main build continues. Think I'll go for it, no seating alterations Olds, I promise :)

Bugger, its already gone to his mate. Ah well, was a nice daydream

his mate gave it him back. game on!

Woo hoo! Trike it quick before he changes his mind!

Nothing wrong with a bolt-on, I've done thousands of miles on my GT550 trike!

Done correctly you are right. But I have seen one and heard of several others where the swing arm mounts or frame in that area have fractured.
A trike axle adds a lot more stress than the frame was originally designed for. I'm just suggesting being careful.

His bike has arrived. it's georgeous. Not sure I should trike it, too nice :)

Trike it, trike it, trike it!!!

sell it me  ;) ;) and i,ll trike it  ;D

What manky says
Trike it, trike it, trike it!!!  :)

It will make a beautiful trike!

Far be it for me to try to influence anyone but............................................ TRIKE IT!
 You know you want to.  :)

is it a trike yet?

Ha Ha Ha. Thanks for the encouragement all. I'll ride her a little first and see how I feel then. I suppose I can always reverse a bolt on :)

Bought a second hand bolt on kit off ebay, hoping to collect it sat am from east of London. That's Xmas sorted 😊

 :) So, on three wheels come the new year then !

Sure hope so 😊

On my way to pick it up. Left homes at 5am, having a bacon butty and a brew at Watford gap services

And I'm back with it!  Ok, so what information / evidence do I need to collect before I start guys?

Easiest way to start mate is to do a swop with me.  I'll give you my old CX trike in exchange. :)

Ha ha, let me think about that ......

Er probs not :) :)

Fair nuff.  :D

The first thing to do is post some photos ;)

Photograph every stage of the conversion & keep receipts for everything!

As Rob says, take lots of pics to show that it's truly a bolt on conversion and that it can be easily changed back to a bike.
If you didn't get a receipt for the conversion kit, print off any details you can from Ebay (or wherever).

Spent 6 hours cleaning off the paint and running some new weld onto the swingarm today. Cream crackered i is. Pics to follow.

Started on the mudguard brackets today. They are out by a mile so the mudguards don't run equal distance from the wheels, and one finishes an inch further off the ground than the other. Nothing that can't be sorted but I'm beginning to realise this bolt on is a bit poor. Will be a little better when I finish it I suppose, and it will get me onto 3 wheels until my build is finished.

Tends to be the way and I'm sure it will be much better by the time you have finished it. Have you checked the axle to bike mounts alignment ?

Hi Olds. Not fully yet, its on the cards for the next few days. I have taken measurements of the sub frame off the axle and it all seems ok there. I"ll only know for sure when I assemble it onto the bike. Worst case will be some cutting / welding on the sub frame, but I am living I hope it wont be needed 😊

Will put a few pics up tomorrow.

Found the correct paint to match the bike online last night and ordered that, so I hope it will look sort of one unit when its done.

I keep having to remind myself this is meant to be a quick way to get onto 3wheels while I finish my build, not a full on project un itself!

Ok, so here are some pics. First the original as it looked on ebay

.

The hamburger lights looked attractive.....But were rotten :(
Didn't like the bolts through the mudguards though

So got it home and stripped it down. The wiring / hydraulics and handbrake cake were in a bad state, as are the mudguards.
In fact the mudguards are held on by long self tapping screws but they didn't actually contact the steel so were "floating" and therefore flexing. Horrible. And they are not fixed equally, so one was further off the ground at the back than the other.

The handbrake cables went through a peice of bent pipe to go from sideways to farwards. Of course these had rubbed and chaffed

and much of the welding was like this, - harrumphhh.

So I stripped all the crud off, looked a bit cleaner and I now I can see it may have some potential

Took off the swing arm subframe and spent a lot of time on it. ground out the welds one by one and rewelded, repositioned the handbrake (new one of ebay) and generally tidied up.

Made up a few little brackets for the brake pipe and fixed them, so it is now nicely clipped on. Also took off the rear grab handles and made some brackets to fix new ones. The new handles were "upcycled" - see modern word! - from my brothers caravan we stripped for its axles. you can see how the mudguards sit on the supports. Nasty!

So this is the plan to reuse the mudguards. I will fit a tube in that will slip over the support. That tube can be nicely blended into the mudguard and somehow hide the wires as well.

Like this , maybe with a rubber sleeve between to take out some vibration and to stop the paint rubbing then rusting.

Spent a lot of time on the axle and luggae carrier grinding off excess weld, rewelding where necessary and generally tidying up. fitted brackets so I can use conventional handbrake cables and then got the lot into paint. the yellow priimer area will probably painted to match the bike tank, so not painte that yet.

Here is a liitle idea I came up with. I have a threaded bar coming off the handbrake tang that I wanted to make look pretty. This is plastic wiring sheath (snake skin) put over the painted threaded bar, and finished with some heat sink. It looks really nice in the flesh

One thing I am worried about is the end of the subframe where it is welded to the axle clamps. I dont like the look of that connection and Im wondering about putting a couple of gussets on at each side someting like this. Anyone got any thoughts on that please?

It wouldn't hurt to have some extra metal there.

That's exactly what I would do. Plus I'd possibly gusset across the two box section where they join the mounting plate.

I'm with Old's way of thinking, and Happy new year to you

Thanks Guys and happy new year. I'm away today and tomorrow so will take a look later in the week. Hoping to do the first mount this weekend 😂

Hi Andy. just looking through your photos. and I think the swing arm looks a bit long and may flex when cornering. is there any way you can cross brace it just to stiffen it up. it may be fine just what I cant see on the photo.?
also what axle is this

Hi Terry. Its a ford axle, I forget which car its off, I need to ask him. Not sure what you mean about cross bracing, do you mean bottom left to top right sort of thing?

Did a bit more this weekend. refitted the swing arm and axle, started making up the wiring harness.

I didnt want to drill the swing arm, so i welded short open sections of tube on top. The harness is made from snake skin, and i put shrink wrap where the tube clamps are. Looks nice when you see it for real.

Handbrake cables terminate in a plate where each can be adjusted. You can see the wiring harness on the luggage rack. Here i drilled and tapped so i could fix it wthe a stainless / rubber p plip and a stainless screw

Handbrake is an adapted peugeot (i think) with a tang fabricated and welded to it. the rod is threaded bar, covered with the same snake skin as im using for the wiring harness, and finished with heat shrink.

Overall picture. The long distance back to the axle from the shocks results in a lot of leverage, so the shocks are moving a bit to easly to my mind. I'll see how it is out on the road, but havy duty shocks ( or additiinal shocks) may be needed.  Planning to paint up all the luggage rack in the same dark green as the fuel tank, and the put in a detail with the seconadry colour of the tank. Same for the mudguards.

Ive been thinking about this. If I swung the top mount of the shocks backwards, so they were vertical that would improve matters a fair bit I think.

I was thinking exactly the same, they don't even have to be vertical - mine aren't but they do the job fine!  Just a bit furether back would do it!

Started making up a sub frame to move the upper mount points of the rear shocks back a little. Hopefully get that done on Saturday.

Sourced a top box, so the sub frame will also serve as a mount point for that.

Also took the front mudguard off and stripped it back to the metal. Its pretty rusty but i think i can recover it.

Rode her down the drive (all of 10 foot) a couple of times as well, she lives !

Progress!  ;D

Been busy the past few weeks with this (small!) project.

I managed to get a top box I liked. This has a large reflective rear panel and i thoght maybe I could work in a high level centre brake light. The white strip is actually a strip of ultra-bright RED LED's - there will be two of these mounted behind the reflector and will shine through the refecive foil by means of aligned holes I will poke into it.

Put a bit of paint on the lid, not put the twin pack laquer on yet - its got dusty as well from doing other things.

And i finally finished the rear muddies. These have taken ages to get back to a finish, they were a real mess. Formed a protuberance for the rear lights - they look just about ok in the flesh.

put a coat of KuRust on the front mudguard. Lots to do to get this looking ok. I have now filled it, sanded and painted, but no pics with me at the mommeent

And finally started cleaning up the rear wheels. They were a little stained and discoloured, so I sanded them back a bit, primed with an etch primer and painted with wheel paint, look ok, a few lines visible up close but they look fine.

good work sir

almost ready then  :)

Removed the battery frame to reaping it yesterday. Pulling the plug out of the regulator / rectifier broke a pin of the unit, then a wire fell out of the plug. Oh heck!

New plug and replacement r and r ordered.

On another cock up front, the newly twin pack lacquered top box fell off the buffet I had it balanced on, and like toast went paint side down. Tried to flat the damage back and repaint but the paint was reacting with the lacquer.  Stripped it right back tonight and primed it again.

Hoping to get pictures taken for deal this weekend, will post em up.

It seems to be sh*t week, I am having all sorts of stupid problems with lumps of metal a.k.a. engines, cars, bikes etc.

Yup, some weeks are like that. Top box back in paint, waiting for the weather to improve then out I go to re-lacquer and throw it to the floor again!

Made up a little bracket for the hazard relay yesterday, will be fitting the resistors for the traffic actors so I can use led's today as well.

With a following wind she may be complete by the evening!

here is a pic reassembled, got to fit the top box yet

pre assembly shot

rear view

That looks rather good

Very tidy. You've made a good job of this Andy.

nice job

Thanks guys. There are some bits left to tidy up, and the paint job is lacking a bit to be honest. Hopefully DVLA will come through and I can get out on her. On my travels now, not back till a week on Tuesday, let's hope.....

Well, took her out for the first test run today. All in all a good run. There's a fair bit of shimmy at the front at low speeds, but a fork seal is leaking quite badly, so I think a good dose of looking at them will be needed before I get too worried.

Carb started pouring petrol out about an hour after I get back, so that'll need looking at as well!

All good though

Glad to hear it went well.  May need to play around with tyre pressures etc. to get it stable but as you say fork seals first if one's leaking. Think about getting a side car or car tyre on the front eventually.

If the front end shimmy disappears around 15 -20 mph I would say that you'll soon get used to it and not notice it!  Try lower pressure in the front tyre too - I run mine around 25 and the same at the rear.  Also the headstock bearings need to be a bit tighter when using the front end for a trike than when on a bike.

Cheers BG. It's pretty violent up to 20, feels like I'm fighting it. Got the components to change the seals so will try that, and play with the tyre pressures (as you and olds suggest)

When I first had mine I rode it once round the perimeter road of the estate and thought "I can't do this" - Then I thought about how I watched the builder of the trike arrive on it so it must be doable!

Sorted it out with playing with pressures etc, rode it like that for years - I did eventually get the front end quite seriously modded at some expense, including extended yokes and wider and higher bars, but that was years down the line when the arthritis was making it tiring to ride long distances, my main object in that was to make the steering lighter but the side benefit was pretty much getting rid of the wobble!

There's always going to be some wobble when a standard bike front end is used for a trike as it's doing a job it's not designed for, and there are various things that help - there are also various mods that help as well  - look at pics of TerryT's Goldwing trike, he has a completely different mod from mine!

Thank Bobbie. Fork seals first 😀

Speaking of which the seal is stuck tight in the lower tube. Has anyone a suggestion how I can get it out?

Is the fork apart? If so, some gentle heat to the fork tube, and prise the seal out.


Or lots of heat to the fork seal directly. Til it bursts into flames,then clear out the sticky remains! :D :D

Dunno, I found myself a man who could!

Should be able to just lever it out once the retaining clip is removed.
You can buy seal remover tools but most aren't that great.
I've used a tyre lever with a bit of scrap ally to protect the fork edge from damage. If it's really stuck, mount the lever in a vice, and pull down on the fork. Gives a lot more leverage. You might need to thin down the end of the lever a bit.

Thanks all. Managed to get them out OK. New seals are in and painted the lower tubes as well, looks much cleaner. Will get some oil in now and try a run again.

depending what you've got in there, you might want to remove a spacer or two, or use a little less oil - one of the things I did to reduce wobbl;e was to let the air out of my air-assisted forks.  No idea why it helped, but it did.

BUT don't take my word for it cos I don't really understand which bit of the forks does what!

Ha Ha. Its not a compressed air type, so I could play with the oil, but i've no idea what i'm doing with that. Problem at work today, so im still working when I should be playing. tomorrow i can get the oil in maybe

Got the fork seal completed and new oil in. Also fitted an Avon sidecar tyre today. Let's see how she handles now :☺

Decided to do things proper as she's an old girl. So stripped the carbs and cleaned them with carb cleaner. They are a swine to get in and out! Changed the coolant and flushed the system. Put flushing agent in the oil an then new oil and filter. She sunning better but still missing on the rear cylinder at tick over. So bad I can take off the plug leads and the idle doesn't change!  Next stop fit new plugs I think. Still when I'm finally out on her I can be confident everything is ok.

Well, that was interesting. The reason the rear cylinder was not firing was in fact a bit of muck in the rear carb float valve holding it open and causing the cylinder to flood (literally overnight). Had another clean and shes running sweet as a nut now :)

That's good news

Well - Olds PM'd me with the suggestion the back end of the bike frame may be too high. Out with the tape measure and guess what - he was completely correct, the bolt on kit lower mount point was 50mm (maybe a little more) higher than the original swing arm point.  I've repositioned the lower shock mount point backwards to add some angle to the shocks and lower the back end. The trail has gone from 100mm to 135mm (original VN trail is 130 we think). Looks a lot better as well!

Will take her up the lane at the weekend and see how she handles now i've done this.

Wel. Ive spent the last 7 weeks frabbing about with the carbs. After cleaning them out I could not get her to rev above 3000 rpm whatever I did, would pop sputter and die. I desperation I bought a cheap pair off e-bay, cleaned them up and put them on. SAME! I was panicking then that there may be something seriously wrong with the engine. Today, In desperation i swapped the carbs around front<> rear. Fixed the problem. I have no idea why but i am relieved. So MOT on tues then get her changed over to Trike at DVLA!

Great. Let us know how it get on.

Update - MOT 3.00 pm Thursday -Gulp!

Passed!  Now officially a triker. Back to the main build now and ride out on my new toy. Whoooo hooooo

Fantastic. Well done Andy.

Congratulations Andy.  ;)

Well done Andy, that's good news

Thanks guys. I must admit I feel drained tonight. I think this has been playing on my mind more than I knew.

Well done  :)
.
.

Well done sir..my sons trike has carb problems too,very similar ? Plus leaking oil from where the head gasket meets the barrels? Head gasket maybe ?  I should show him your thread ,may give him inspiration ?

well done mr k. ;D

It's all Trevs fault!

 ;D

sorry about that  (not)  ;D

well done sir  ;)

Well, the saga continues. The battery was not charging so I decided to take a proper look tonight. Arrrgggg Stator is short circuit to the engine body so need a new stator. Ordered and being delivered monday by courier. Bad news is that that is an engine out job and I'm on holiday next week, was hoping to get out on her a little. Ah well, Monday is an oily day.

just found a Clymer  service repair maintenance book for 1985 to 1995 bikes ,any good to you ?,I don,t need it anymore,and don,t want anything for it.

Hi Trev

Yes, that would be great mate, as the Haynes is not too hot sometimes. Will pm you my addy.

on its way.

Cheers mate

A little more news. The new stator did the trick, but its an engine out job to change it. Battery went flat on first ride out resulting in needing to bump start her. The earth line was off the regulator / rectifier - that's sorted now and she's charging like a 'gud 'un. We'e done just over 100 miles the last 2 days and she has settled down nicely. Built a quick manometer with a long length of tube this evening and found the carbs sync was a mile out so set that up now. Off to Skipton and Bolton abbey tomorrow. Sat nav fitted ready :)

Here is a pic of us out and about, we do wear lids, just not on this pic.

Now there's a happy looking pair of trikers  ;D

That's a good looking trike

It is indeed!

I'm always shocked when people dont look like their avatar thingy. :D Good looking trike and a happy couple. 

Yeah, I'm the same mate. Unfortunately, I do look like mine.

I hope i don't look like mine,
Although i have lost a bit of weight.

Ordered a new set of rear muddies today as those keep re-cracking where i repaired them.

I also got hold of some stuff called "blue job" for the chrome on the exhausts. I removed the bluing and staining complely. most impressed!

Added a new back box and panniers. The brake lights built into the panniers are as feeble as a feeble thing. So im going to fit some nice bright LED's

You've got more luggage space than my car!  :)