Tazet's Trike project :)

[VALLEYSBOY]

you painting the casing or leaving it as is?

[tazet]

I'll leave it as it is, just got to put a bit of polish on and it's done. It will look similar to Manky's one.

[Manky Monkey]

I called in at SaddleBags workshop yesterday to collect the axle casings. He & Doug had pressed out the tubes, cut them down by the required 4 inches & machined the cut ends to ensure they were round & true before they were pressed back in.
-which is where the problem began.
I think Reliant must've made their axle tubes from some crappy old length of scaffold tube they found round the back of their factory. Really poor quality tube, coupled with 30 years of rust. When they put them in the lathe to turn down they found they were oval -high spots & low spots. Bugger. So they had to guess at the correct size. They waited for me to arrive before trying to press them back in. Go for it I said, what's the worst that can happen.
Presssss....crack.
Bugger.
Split the aluminium diff casing right down the side. The split followed the casting joint, which was obviously the weak point. Exactly the same problem we had with Flap's axle. So they machined the other tube down a tad further & it went back in with no problem at all.
O.K, time to sort out the busted one.
I took it straight to Keith at BKI Welding in Newbury. This guy welded up the engine casings for the multi cylindered Kawasaki that did the rounds of the shows a year or so ago, so I trusted him with our plasticine quality Reliant ally. No problem. One day later & I was back to collect it. 20 quid. Sorted.
So the axle casings are now 8 inches narrower than standard. Now we need our mate Reg to come up with the steel sleeves for the driveshafts so we can put the whole lot back together again. 
 

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

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[VALLEYSBOY]

Nice one bet yer starting to chomp at the bit Taz

[mouse]

just my bleedy luck is that andy 

[Manky Monkey]

Ahh well, sorted now, so no longer a problem. Another small step on the path to that first ride on a new machine.

[tazet]

Yes VB I am but still can't put it all together yet. I've still got the gearbox to finnish and I can clean up the axle so Marcus can spray it for me.

[blair]

no sorry but youve got it all wrong you need to put the front wheel into the forks and put them in front of the back wheels and put the axel between the back wheels what you have set up  is a really wide unicycle . or is it abstract art morphing into machine . 

[tazet]

Now you tell us. We knew we were doing something wrong but just couldn't put our fingers on what it was. 

[VALLEYSBOY]

Taz what is the total length of yer axle now plz

[tazet]

Er not sure all I know is it's 8" shorter than it was 

[Manky Monkey]

Right, I picked up Taz's driveshafts from Reg, my mate with a lathe in his shed who turns up most of the small odds & ends we need. Useful chap.
We cut the shafts in the middle so as not to mess up the tapered & splined ends. 4 inches was removed & the ends butted together again. Then a tight fitting steel sleeve, machined by Reg, was slid over the joint before the whole thing was drilled & pinned with 6mm engineers dowels. 6 inch long sleeves mean the shafts are held straight & true. I'll weld around each end of the sleeve & each end of the pins. That should do it. 

[tazet]

Driveshafts have now been welded together.