TOPIC:

I've finally finished my trike. It was a long time coming but now that I've retired I have the time. Let me know what you think.
Bill/KZQ

Trikes are not my cup of tea so to speak, but you have built a very nice looking one. 

It is good to see it on the road. It looks like it handles pretty well. Does it meet your expectations?

wrote:

It is good to see it on the road. It looks like it handles pretty well. Does it meet your expectations?


 

I can't say what I expected from the ride. I'm pretty sure that the rake and trail would be different had the bike been designed as a three wheeler. As the rear wheels hit every little bump in the road it feeds into the steering. I fitted this steering damper to prevent the front end from the lurching side to side. It works well but it greatly increases the effort to turn the bars. I suppose it's no big deal.
I did learn a lesson once when I chopped the throttle closed at about 20 MPH in first gear. The gearing caused the tires to chirp and bounce and pretty soon the bike was giving me a three wheel bull ride. I solved the problem by dropping the rear tire pressure to about 15 PSI. As I said somewhere else this machine will rarely see duty and then only if I can find a parade to blend into.
Regards
Bill

looks pretty good to me. nice n simple design. is it a hardtail? just wondering. never mind. I see the shocks.

That's a tidy looking little trike you have there Bill. Play around with the adjustment on the steering damper to find the sweet spot, I've used them a lot and found that you usually don't need a lot of tension to improve front end behaviour. You may also have to play around with the rear shocks to get it handling better down back, they are still supporting the same weight above the shock but unsprung weight is much more, that will drastically effect compression rebound damping abilities of the shocks..  Maybe try and find someone who knows a bit about setting up trikes, I know a guy in Australia but that's no good to you in the USA...

I posted it to Rumble. Let's see how well it works:
rumble.com/embed/vquzik/?pub=xlh4y
Not very well all I can do is link it.
Bill

 

Awesome, and congratulations!  cool looking scoot, made for fun.

It looks good!  I was going to ask if you added rake but I think you already answered that question.  Does the rear end have independent suspension?

In research  (after 25 miles on my trike)  Pick is my shock setup, when I received it.
I realized folks want to put 2 shocks (think rear axle articulation),but in reality your rear swing arm just tilts your whole vehicle.
Every manufacture of 3 and 4 wheelers(not side x side) put single shock in the center of the swing arm( like sport bikes).
When I had shocks on the left and right it rode like a hay wagon, it was bound as soon the rear moved in any way(especially at highway speeds).
Have you measured your trail? More rake and more trail help A LOT over 60mph, but hurt the Nimbleness. 
Be Well
 

The main problem at the rear is the added unsprung weight , when adding the dual wheels and diff, also, the rear suspension wants to now act as independent , as your wheels are now outboard and want to react as a car suspension would, wheels going up and down independently,  you now get binding at the swingarm pivot because it only wants to go up and down..

wrote:

The main problem at the rear is the added unsprung weight , when adding the dual wheels and diff, also, the rear suspension wants to now act as independent , as your wheels are now outboard and want to react as a car suspension would, wheels going up and down independently,  you now get binding at the swingarm pivot because it only wants to go up and down..
 

You're right 750 R1. The swing arm bearings are heavily used, at least. These are double needle bearings per side and so far they're really rigid. Another factor is the double dog bone arrangement which keeps the swing arm stiff against lateral twisting forces.

Shankkole,
Looking at your axle , do I see that it's an actual Harley Servi Car axle?

Thanks
Bill