Triple Trouble Pickup Trike

[Iceman]

In the beginning.....
I always seem to have stuff with me - tools, rucsacs dogs or children and the wee voices in my head reckoned a pick up trike would be just the ticket instead of having to fork out loads for a truck So, a quick look on Google Images produced some inspiration...
So hands up who would like the first on? Yes, I thought so, but there is more chance of the BBC showing re-runs of Jim'll Fix It then me finding one of these, never mind affording it.
The second one is getting there. A bit blingy but I do like the 30's Fordesque Pick up bed. Unfortunately I could carry more in my pockets than that. Mind you, I wouldn't send it back if I won it in a raffle. What else?

[Iceman]

Bingo! This is what I need! Where did this come from? Manky Monkey Motors? Must have a look....
Just a few things I would change. It has to be bike based because Reliant Robins are as rare as Tory Politicians round here and bikes are more available. Plus I don't want to go down the SVA route so it would be a bolt on hardtail for me.
But MMM? What a wealth of info and experience -  just the thing for a chap like me up in the hicks.  Right, lets get some bit and get started...

[Iceman]

After a bit of a false start with a CX500, I found a Virago 535 on Gumtree and a quick 'phone call and a bank transfer I was the proud owner. The proud owner of something  I hadn't seen and that was 180 miles away in Aberdeenshire.  My pals Daz and Angus who live over that way collected it and confirmed it was a good un. Phew! We were we meeting up the next month on a MR Course so we arranged a prisoner transfer then. Mabye January wasn't the best month to do this......

[Iceman]

The journey back home was , em, interesting but all survived. I did mange to get rid of Doby the House Elfe who was sitting on the back ....
I had asked my boss if I could build the bike at work and he was happy to do so as long as it remained mobile so it could be pushed out the yard if we needed the room. The plan was to build off the swing arm but the mobility rule meant I had to leave the bike whole so it was onto Fleabay for another swing arm. I had already bought a Robin axle from the same source alongside a couple of very cheap Corsa rims with new tyres so when the swing arm arrived it was game on....

As it was basically going to be a flat bed on a flat frame then it made sense to make the frame out of box section rather than tubing, so it was measure ,measure, measure, then chop,chop. I think the pictures are basically self explanatory..

[Iceman]

The box sections were welded at 90' to the spindle and parallel to each other and joined together with a 5mm plate. The side was then cut out of the drive side to allow the drive shaft to line up with the diff. I had done the usual cut up photos and drawings and decided that an 8" stretch in the wheelbase was what was needed. The width of the bed was dictated by the axle and a frame was made, complete with a pair of axle clamps as per MMM Trike Tech instructions,( but placed horizontally rather than vertically ). Nearly finished!

[Iceman]

And up onto its wheels for a wee look...

[Olds]

Damn that red trike looks good !
Glad to see that you took pics as you went along. Makes a write up easier, informative and interesting.
Well done that man.

[merv]

Looking good,another interesting project 

[fifer]

Your`re doing Braw work 
.
.

[Iceman]

Gentlemen, thank you for the kind and encouraging comments.

With the basic frame made it was time for a trial fit. The first picture shows my friend and colleague, Shane, starting to take the back end off the bike using the yard Hiab to hold it in the air! Shane is a biker of long standing and used to work in a bike shop so he is pretty much up on all things bike, though he has never done anything like this before. The great thing about Shane, apart from his sense of humour and his multi skills, is that he is a very good person to bounce ideas off. He also keeps me going when I'm struggling with the old Mojo....

The second pic shows the frame on the bike with the front crossmember in and two temp braces going up to the original shock mounts. the two notches are to take the 1" box section bed frame. We manged this in two hours keeping to our commitment of keeping things mobile. The reaction next day at work was quite interesting, especially from the young lads who couldn't believe you could do things like this..... They weren't brought up on "Custom Car".....

[Iceman]

Everything was sitting right so whilst I made a couple of these....

[Iceman]

....Shane started on the prop....
This was made with the front of the bike shaft and the rear of the Reliant one. I replaced the u/j later.The prop was tacked in place and the trike wheeled around to make sure everything moved as it should. Which it did. Sweet as a Gaelic song. Now it was starting to get exciting...

[stinkey]

Looks better than that last propshaft on here .? well done sir

[Iceman]

If I had known that we could have made it out of box section  it would have saved a bit of time!

Anyway, it had all gone too well up to now. With the bike now a trike we did some measuring and realised that the right side of the trike stuck out 50mm more than the other. Hmm. we measured and measured and couldn't work out why. There was no choice but to take the thing apart again and lop 25mm of one side. Think about it...God knows we did..
So it was back onto the table, clamp, chop and weld. Whilst we were there we lopped the back off the frame too. We had completely over engineered the frame and it had become too heavy considering that there was a second frame being built out of 25mm box going on top to take the bed. We also braced the cross member and I started on the brakes
 

[Iceman]

So here is the basic brake set up .
I used the existing bike cable and lever set up which is about 4:1. This  hooks up to the bottom of the lever pushing on the Landie clutch master cylinder which is about 2:1 . We beat ourselves up   deciding whether the final ratio is 6;1 or 8:1. In the end  it worked so its all academic and there is loads of adjustment. Life is too short to worry about some things...But where did all those bloody holes come from?