Tazet's Trike project :)

[tony b]

will do

[Manky Monkey]

Spent a couple of hours in the shed today, arseing about with Taz's trike. We're due to take it to the Basingstoke festival of transport in a couple of days time, (Sunday -come along & say Hi. We'll be the scruffy bunch in the club field). It'd be nice if it looked a little more like a trike by then. Had a look at the curved rail that runs around the back of the saddle. Been several months since I last worked on this, so almost forgotten what I had planned. The inside face of the curve needed a lot of cutting back to follow the curve of the seat & once that was done, with the entire shed ankle deep in grinding dust, I set about bending a strip of 3mm strap in the vice to follow the curve & welded it in place.
Doesn't look like an afternoon's work does it. O.K, I'm a slow, methodical worker. I plod along at my own little pace, but it's nearly done now & ready to tack in place on the frame. A little concerned that once tacked, I won't be able to slot the front of the seat in. One way to find out I guess.

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

......And we're back.
If you've been paying attention to the forum you'll know Taz's trike build has been side-lined recently to try & make headway on other projects. I got bored hacksawing & filing brake plates for my car in the shed today so took another look. We threw the rolling chassis together for our pitch at the Basingstoke Transport Festival back in May, then pulled it apart again when we got home. So I pieced it back together again.
Doc, ("Twisted Patience"), made us a mount for the carb bellmouth, designed for a Harley, but I want the finished carb to point forward, rather than over the rocker cover like the original car. No problem. Reliant fitted their early 750cc engines with a down draught Zenith carb. When they upgraded to the 850 motor, they went for 1 1/4" SU carbs. The mounting holes are exactly the same but 90 degrees out. So the boffins at Reliant simply modified the same inlet manifold molds.

[Manky Monkey]

So there's space on an 850 manifold to redrill the holes in the 750 positions, which will turn the carb around to the desired angle. New holes drilled & tapped to 8mm. The hole spacing's just wide enough to clear the manifold without cutting ino the casting walls & creating air leaks.

[Manky Monkey]

Ta daa! Job done. Must stop using the auto focus camera setting. Fuzzy photo but you get the idea.
Next job will be to remove the pre-heat casting & it's hose spigots from the back of the carb mount. I'll probably also file off the original unwanted bolt holes -can you file off a hole? 

[Manky Monkey]

Carb & manifold bolted on the dummy engine we used to build the frame, (a set of empty casings bolted together). As I suspected, I need to raise the King Sportster tank half an inch or so to clear the carb float bowl. No problem. I temporarily tack-welded it to the top frame tube for the Basingstoke show -no tank mounts made yet so I'll sort it out then. I'll also add a foam filter to the bottom of the bellmouth to filter out bugs, birds & passing small children.

[Manky Monkey]

I'm pleased with the way the bellmouth now follows the line of the tank, same as the foam filter does on my own trike. The new 4 into 1 exhaust is mild steel & courtesy of Tim Holt, who was selling them on Ebay. It'll be chrome plated eventually.

[Manky Monkey]

Spent a long time sat in the shed, looking at the lines of this thing. We originally set out to build something inspired by vintage Massey Ferguson tractors. We tried a steel tractor seat but it just didn't fit the lines of the frame. So we picked up a Corbin solo seat intended for a Harley Sportster at an autojumble. That needs a loop of frame tube around it to support it. I can't help thinking it looks wrong. Doesn't flow properly & sits the back end of the trike too high. I'm also thinking maybe I should make a one off seat base, triangular to follow the frame, with a flip up at the back, meeting a lower frame loop. Then I could use a standard Reliant gear lever, coming up through the nose of the saddle as my last trike one did. That'd give a nice short, positive gear selection -one of the problems with my own trike is the sloppy side mount stick. Opinions?
 

[BikerGran]

Easier to have an opinion if there was a phot with the seat in place?

[ROD]

My 2p..........Wont the gearlever idea bring the seat back a lot further ,therefore having to use longer bars? This is prob I had with mine.Andy ,youre tall(er) than me (everyone seems to be ) Im a short arse,but will Taz's arms reach without the bars looking too OTT? Havent studied her body (oo er missus! )
  As for the existing seat,I think it looks ok! There again ,Im not a biker type!
                       

[tazet]

  My legs are as long as Andy's but body and arms are shorter. He's 6ft and I'm 5'6" I'll have a sit on it later and see just how far back I'll end up.

[Manky Monkey]

O.K, I admit it doesn't look too bad once the seat's in place. I like the way the top line of the tank curves down & then flows into the upward swoop of the seat, but still not 100% convinced. Leaning against the shelves behind the trike is a small aluminium rack I intend to fit behind the seat.
I'd forgotten, (yes, my memory really is that bad), that I swept the uprights either side of the gearbox back further than normal so I could bring the gearstick out to the side, in front of them, in the same way that Flap's trike is done. That means it can be shorter & therefore more positive feeling -the longer the stick & more bends it has in it, the vaguer gear selection will feel.
I'll get Taz to have another sit on it later & see what she thinks & how it looks with her aboard.

[panthershaun]

I'd leave well alone myself, side on that is the nicest trike I've seen you build so far mate, with the girders on there and the king sporty it has an almost "Zero-esque" look about it which is cooler than a cool thing in my book 

[BikerGran]

I think it looks really good with the seat!  The whole thing I would say is a bit different without being odd.