New project (no not convertible)

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Well, on a bit of a break from the convertible project at the moment, garage is full of junk having had to empty our old house at short notice, ready for tenants.

Anyway I'm on holiday this week, along with the kids, so the youngest (8) decided today that he wanted me to start a new project for him, and here it is....

trike1.jpg


Based on his old 6v police bike which he had out-grown, we've cut it in half, welded the front forks together properly (it all relied on plastic mouldings before), made some rails and a steering pivot, and attached this lot to the rear end off the police bike. I've got a nice big 12v battery to throw in which should give approx double max speed, just looking at making a variable speed controller for the trottle grip. We'll be using the centre arm rest from the P6 to make a seat for him, then he'll be ready to scare the rest of his friends on the street !

If its not fast enough, then the rear end will be going in the bin and we'll be making one up using a old mini starter motor...

Richard :D



Edited By webmaster on 1130273771
 
Paprika said:
cor. looks brill. can you build me one too, please please?

Oh, I'm 5'9" and weigh 13 stone :(
Click to expand...
Think you might need one of these instead,
502 ci
auto box
502 bhp
bosshoss.jpg

and now the really frightening bit (apart from £41.000 price tag) they do A SUPERCHARGED NoS INJECTED VERSION AS WELL with 720 odd BHP. ??? and 2 wheels :D
(they do do a trike as well but haven't done 1 with a p6 rear end so not showing them lol)
 
Hmm, perhaps a little ott for an 8 year old !

Well, we've just about finished it, add some foot rests, and a foot throttle. extended the handle bars a little to clear his legs and sprayed the whole thing black. Its now running a 12v 17ah battery instead of the original 6v 10ah that it came with, its got some torque, spits gravel on the drive and spins the wheels for the first 10 feet on the road !, needs some proper rubber tyres now, perhaps some 10" mini rims would work.

trike2.jpg


Oh dear I can see this turning into a long term project. After a run up and down the road the grin on his face was a wide as a P6, mind you after the second run he was resting his elbows on the handle bars, obviously not scarey enough for him !

Richard
 
Great Trike, wish I had one of those as a kid.

I think the Motorbike is a Boss Hoss?

If it is I have seen one of these beauties up close in Florida and heard it start in a garage. It makes a sound as if it had come from Hades itself and makes a 215cu V8 sound very weedy indeed.
 
Nice Trike but nobody on the forum has given you a hard time about lack of progress on the convertible. I feel it is my duty to do so.

Come on. Chop Chop!

You should be able to finish it by xmas!!

PS its taken me over a year to fix the speedo on my S...!
 
Yep, p6 armrest as a seat, proper leather, just need a fake fuel tank so we can air-brush a naughty lady on it !

On the convertible, I've just been sent some photos of one of the Graber coupe's in restoration, very interesting, almost identical work to how i've done the convertible. If the guy agrees I'll post the pictures up.

Richard
 
JohnGlinn(Cardiff&District) said:
Alistair,
you've gotta read the words as well as looking at the pictures, you know!
Regards, John.
Click to expand...
oops! was too engrosed in the pictures! when I get the chance I will post some pics of the modified Silver Cross Pram my dad and I have been working on, it used a friction drive electric motor from an old bicycle assist system, unfortunately due to gearing problems my 3 yr old rolled it on its first outing so its now getting the wiper motor from a micra (more torque less speed - hopefully)
Cheers
Al
 
Time to revive this thread !
My convertible is currently stalled pending an injection of funds... in the meantime my son decided that the trike was too boring now and I needed to sort it out. He got some proper 12" rubber tyred wheels for xmas ( what a dad am I ? ), which have been sat waiting until now.

Luckily one of his friends was skipping a couple of old bikes, so we did a bit of "scrapheap challenge" and withing 1/2 an hour had the chain and sprockets off it, and cut the forks/headstock/front wheel off too.

Next I removed the old front wheel and handle bars, and welded the "new" front end on, giving it a quick coat of matt black for good measure :)

I removed the original police bike rear end, and made up a box section frame and axle to take the mini starter motor and the new wheels.

To make things easier I'm only driving one wheel, allows me to weld the axle straight to the frame and means it will go round corners a little easier ( no I'm not knocking up a diff from bottle tops and tin foil ! )

I welded a small extension tube to one of the rims and welded the crank sprocket from the bike too it.

Then I cut the pinion gear off the starter motor and attached the rear wheel sprocket from the bike, (made it bolt on so I can change the gear ratios )

This all sounds very easy doesn't it ??

Next I welded the new rear frame onto the front rails, bolted the starter motor in and added a sliding support for the top of the starter so I can adjust the chain tension.

Now came a sticky bit, the new rear wheels came with some pretty dodgy roller bearings, which were a loose fit on the 20mm axle, and I had already thrown one set away thinking I was going to have a rotating axle. On initial testing I found the play in the bearing was causing the chain to jump so I decided a new plan was needed.

I popped into our local bearing supplier and bought some propper precision sealed needle roller bearings that were a perfect fit on the 20mm axle but a little small for the rims, so I had to make sleeves to make them a tight fit. Plus I made some collars for the axle to stop the wheels moving along it.

Finally I had it all together and applied power from the 12v sealed lead-acid battery, it all worked happily on the bench and looked like it was going to be quick, so I took it outside and gave it a go...... And basically it didn't have enough torque to move the trike, never mind 17 stone of fat-dad sat on it !

I figured this was going to happen as the gears from the bike were 16 tooth and 26 tooth so well below 2:1 ratio. So I popped down to the local Halfords for a laugh... The guy at the bike parts counter was great, after I explained that I wanted a bigger ring gear and what it was for (took a couple of attempts before he understood) He found me a nice alloy 44 tooth ring, should have been about £18 on its own but he let me have it for £5. Nice one Halfords !!

Back home I drilled the existing gear so that I could bolt the new one on (can't weld ally to steel), and now we had 16:44 ratio - 2.75:1 a lot better.
I fired it up again but still no good, so I decided to try a car battery for some serious juice, and this gave it enough to just about move me.

I had a quick browse on ebay and found a 8 speed rear cassette which went down to 11 tooth, which would give me 4:1 ratio. So I "bought it now" for a few quid.

Meanwhile, having next to no patience I decided to let Christian have a go at 2.75:1 so we wheeled it out to the street, I hooked the car battery to the starter motor with long jump leads. Basically I ran behind carrying the battery so I could pull the power at any time.
Well I tried to run behind !!, with the low gearing ( high ? ), it didn't exactly take off, but after about 10 yards at picked up and managed to out run me ( not exactly hard ) and was obviously still accelerating.

I gave him the hand-held GPS which records maximum speed, and we had another go, by this time the mini starter motor wasn't sounding too happy, but we still managed over 7 mph in 20 yards. Although the bike speedo I fitted for him recorded 109mph !

I also bought from ebay a bike rear-hub which accepts the cassette gears, this arrived today so when I got home from work I took to it with the chisel and removed the bit we needed.
We're now ready to weld up the freewheel and attach it to the motor, I'm going to fit 4 different gears from the cassette 11,12,14,16 so we can play with the ratios a bit, possibly try for a high speed run on the 16 on the access road at work. ( if he's brave enough ! )

So nearly there, once we get the gears on and make up some bodywork to cover the battery/motor/chain it will be pretty close. I also need to make a variable speed controller, I don't fancy on-off control from a 60amp car battery !

I'll post some pictures up in a minute

:)
 
wow that is really smart.my little girl who is 7 wants one made up for xmas this year now...thats a good idea for the rear wheels
 
Scrap heap challenge, now that's an idea ! Might have to think about that.

The rear wheels I bought off ebay, I suspect they're the type used on "sack trucks" and the like.
It was that or some 10" mini wheels, but I thought they might be a bit big and heavy.
 
For a first Scrap Heap Challenge, how about making a dune buggy out of a P6 base unit and running gear, and making it up to look like something out of Mad Max 2!! :laugh:
 
talking of scrapheap challenge 1 of my recovery drivers was in team gorrila 2 years ago.they had to build a off road vehicle they said it was good fun...
 
Managed to get an hour on it tonight, so I've fitted the new gear casette to the motor. I had to weld the freewheel solid (or there wouldn't be any drive), then turn down the motor shaft a couple of mm, fit the carrier and gears and bolt it up tight.
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Now I've got a couple of new problems, fist I think the chain is a bit wide, maybe these new fangled mountain bikes use a narrower chain for all those gears, time for another trip to Halfords.
Second problem, I need new brushes for the motor, positive ones are worn right down and it only goes if you push the shaft in, I've found them on the web for £1.70 but £8 delivery !! So I'm probably better off finding a local auto-electrics shop.
 
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