whooops i fecked up

[Gypsy]

thanks for the info everyone


we been talking to da man so hopefully it's sorted

problem now is we just noticed the right rear wheel is 4cm further from the centre than the left wheel


luckily manky monkey (postie) has put us in touch with a guy who can make spacers for the wheel, see how it goes, if no use may have to replace the back end

phew

no wonder it handles ike sh1t
ok i must make it clear that the problems we are having are with our original trike not the one that Alik built (there is no way a man of aliks calibre would put a fecking axle 4cm too far to the right).must also say that the biuld on aliks trike is 100% : also it looks the dog's love nuggets !!!!! :D

[Alik Windrush]

Thanks again Gypsy.
Do you know that you can buy wheel spacers (in about 10 mm incriments I think) from most performance car shops....

[Doro]

hi Alik

yep we ordered a full set, studs bolts and spacers from speedshack.co.uk

we were gonna get one made by postie's mate but we needed it pretty quickly

so if we attend the celtics on the trike you'll know we were successful lol


can't believe we've been riding the thing for 18months, been to manchester, dorset, derby, northants, all over on the thing

and all the time gypsy thought it was hard to handle cos it was a trike thing

didn't realise it was a build fault d'oh


(Mad Dog knows how slowly we had to take corners etc)

[Mad Dog]

(Mad Dog knows how slowly we had to take corners etc)

Indeed,

But I am a generous man and never said a word.

I wouldn't reccomend spacing out one wheel to compensate for the offset coz it will put the load centre beyond the centre line of the wheel bearings.

Best to relocate the axle - I assume it was done that way to enable the diff to line up.

[Blackjack]

I'm a bit curious., and I'd like to know the following too!

Hard to handle in what way?

Difficult to turn into bends?

Difficult to keep on line in a bend?

Bars hard to hold in position?

This is a rigid trike I assume?

If you can get two sets of bathroom scales together, can you weigh each back wheel? Use a piece of stout wood across the two sets of scales and add the two readings together.

Might be worth doing that before you start offsetting wheels, just to see how much of a problem you've got.

[Doro]

ok well gypsy described it like this:

when he tries to steer to the right (such as on a roundabout) the trike feels as though the righthandside wheel is trying to go left, ot the whole thing is trying to go left or summat (sod it he'll have to explain when he gets home).

apparently with the offset being 4cm it will handle like a sidecar, but as though the sidecar is on the right instead of the left

we're going to try the wheel spacer cos it's cheap and if it fixes the problem enough we won't need to get the back end renewed (because of the way the frame and everything is welded we would have to completely renew the whole back end)

and I can't work out why the weight of the wheels would help......more info required Mr :)

[Blackjack]

Cause, the weight on the wheel will affect the handling.

I can't see how 40mm offset on its own is enough to make it handle like a sidecar outfit. If the axle isn't square to the centre line that might do it though.

Thing is a sidecar has one wheel 12" or so in front of the other, which is basically why it handles so weirdly. Not entirely but mostly.

Given that the axle is square the 40mm offset won't have a huge effect on the wheel weight. If it isn't square you might see some significant differences from one side to the other. In which case adding a wheel spacer will probably make it worse.

The other thing I'd want to check is that the steering head is vertical in relation to the axle.

The thinking goes like this, idiot can't get the axle central (easy bit) therefore has idiot got the rest of it right (harder)????

Love,

Blackjack, harbinger of Doom. :eek:

[Doro]

ah thats ok mate, we're prepared for doom lol

it might not be that bad, after all we've been riding it for ages, all over the country etc

plus the problem just got worse recently so might be other factors involved, like tyre pressures, suspension leakages etc

but we are investigating and eliminating as we go.

The wheel spacer is a cheap fix just to see if it helps

If not, (or makes it worse) then back to the drawing board.

We did meet some guys (at the rock n blues) who knew the fella who'd built it and they seemed to think it was a brilliant little trike, so I dunno, build quality seems fine to me (not an expert tho I am an engineer so I know some things)


we shall see (and keep y'all posted :) )

[Blackjack]

If you want some wheel spacers quickly then I'm pretty sure that merlin motorsport have them.

Merlin Motorsport (http://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/)

Useful catalogue anyway.