Manky's new Reliant trike.

[critch]

looking rather splendifferous mr manky

did you end up basing this frame on the one you did for my wife?

[Manky Monkey]

Hello Critchipoos!
Yeah, pretty much. I was riding my last one, (sold yesterday on Ebay by it's current owner), to work on Flap's orange one a couple of years ago & decided I liked the way the frame was turning out. So ended up stripping mine down, keeping the engine, front end & rear axle & wheels, & building a new frame around it. Yours was built around that time, so shared a similar design.
Nearly finished mine. How's yours coming on?

[blair]

did you pull up at the show inside the box already on the trike and when you got in pulled a leaver to drop the tailgate and rolled out backwords out like they did in night rider all done to the MM theme tune ??   

[tbone]

`hey hey we`re the monkies` 

[Manky Monkey]

More like The Muppets. 
The pick up bed won't be long enough to carry a bike, let alone a trike, but I'm planning on fitting a removable tow hitch, so I can tow the trike to shows. Taz is going to put one on her Charger when it's done too, to tow her own trike. Between us we'll have enough vehicles for our own little custom show!

[critch]

very well mate just getting some slabs done had loads of one off stuff done so far

dont think itll let the manky's down i WILL get some photies down loaded soon

[Manky Monkey]

Getting really bogged down in this trike build. TBone's suffering the same thing with his, so at least I know it's not just me. Seem to be going over & over the same stuff without making any significant progress at all. Can't wait to get it finished & get out & ride it, but having trouble raising the enthusiasm to work on it.
I took it along to the recent Basingstoke festival of transport & noticed the steering stop on the headstock was loose. Took a better look at it today. Don't know why, but I made the stop as a stainless pin that screws into a threaded hole in the bottom bearing cup. Obviously it can't screw in any deeper than the wall thickness of the bearing cup or it'd bugger up the bearing, which means there's only about 5mm of thread. Not enough- the weight of the front end dropping against the other end of the pin is stretching the thread so it moves in the hole.
I need something far more substantial if I'm going to use the trike as a daily driver. The only method I can think of is to mount pins on the back edge of the bottom yoke, that stop against pins screwed into the tops of the front down tubes. At this late stage everything's nicely powder-coated. Whatever I do is likely to mean re-coating something or touching in with paint. Got to be done though. Bugger.
Another step backwards.

[tbone]

I do know how your feeling mate, Its not a feeling of not wanting to do it, more of a wanting it done, and every little glitch pushes that point further away.
Your Trike is much further forward than mine and so maybe these small annoyancies hit you even harder? And the fact that you have 3 other projects on the go, a website to look after, various meets and shows to attend plus a full time job and `normal daily life` and all that that brings, is a testament to your strength of character and nature.
I sometimes wonder where all that energy comes from. The builds that you have done,documented and continue to do have led to countless projects being started in sheds up n down the country, my own included, and so, not only from me, but from all those shed builders ,  i`ll use your own words `you`re keeping me inspired, so keep plugging away at it please`. 

[panthershaun]

well said young man, 

from another guy who is constantly juggling time, work, projects, magazine, work, shows, more work I am constantly amazed at how much the Manky one gets done he inspires me big time when I start to falter 

[gpz]

manky i had problem with the steering stop so i driilled right through the yoke and made some stainless bobbins to go over them and tapped the holes and put nuts on underneath ,dont know whether you could do the same without spoiling the powder coating

[Manky Monkey]

Normal daily life -I have a normal life?
We knew almost a year ago, when Taz bought her Charger, that we faced a period of constant work on different projects but that it'd be worth the hassle when they're all done & we have a choice of 4 custom vehicles between us! We'd hoped that intense build time would only last 6 months or so, but it's already almost double that. Wouldn't be so bad if we were steaming ahead & getting loads done but sometimes you just feel you're tired & irritable all the time, losing quality time together & achieving nothing.
Just keeping the site updated -adding vehicle write-ups, sifting through event photos, editing them & posting the galleries online can often take all evening. Taz very often falls asleep on the sofa, laptop still perched on her knees, while I toil away at the keyboard till gone 1 in the morning, before crawling into bed, only for my alarm to go off again at 4.30. I average about 3 hours sleep a night.
Just recently the afternoons have been taken up with organising merchandise, packing it up & dashing down to the loal Post Office with it, plus running parts for various projects about from one workshop to another. Weekends just seem to be gone before we know it & it's back to the daily routine again.
Yeah, occasionally I wonder why we're putting ourselves through it, then someone sends us a note, or posts something online, thanking us, (all of us, not just Taz & I), for helping them or inspiring them, & I think Yeah, that's why we do it.      

[Manky Monkey]

GP, the problem's with the other end of the set-up, on the headstock of the frame, rather than the yoke.
I'm not sure about drilling the top tubes of the frame, under the headstock to take through bolts. A high stress area so don't want to weaken it in any way. I could make up threaded inserts, drill the down tubes & weld them in, then screw stainless bobbins into them for matching pins on the yokes to stop against. That'd bugger up the powder-coating around them, but I've got some touch-up paint mixed to match the colour, so could make it good afterwards. It'd mean pulling the front end off to get access to it. Not a huge job, but daunting now everything's nice & shiny.
I wondered about some sort of stainless clamp -a steering stop that clamps around the top of the down tube. It'd need a locating bolt though to stop it sliding around the tube when the yokes hit it.
No point bodging up something that's going to be too delicate to trust in everyday use -if it all has to come apart again to do the job properly then it'll have to.
Only other idea I can think of is to drop the front end out & weld something to the centre of the headstock tube, between top & bottom bearings, that will extend down over the bottom bearing cup, with a threaded hole over the one I already have, giving twice the depth for the stainless pin to screw into. That might work.

[Manky Monkey]

Spent an hour in the barn this evening dismantling the front end again.

[Manky Monkey]

The revised plan is to find someone, (Twisted?), to machine me a stainless steel collar to fit over the bottom bearing cup. If it's 10mm thick it could have an M10 thread tapped into it. That could line up with the existing hole in the headstock which could be re-drilled & tapped to M10. That'd give me 15mm of thread depth. The collar could be held to the bearing cup with a couple of M6 grub screws.

[yanto]

man that is nice