It’s the Little Things That Count
We are working on those final bits to get the frame ready for powder coating, with small amounts of work to be done to the engine before we test run that as well.
Things are starting to take shape.
We started by creating brackets for the seat springs, this was done by using box section set at a 45 degree angle and using small lengths of threaded rod as a pinion point for the springs.
Spring mount made of box section and threaded rod
This should give us a little more personal suspension on the trike.
Spring in situ
I wanted to break up the chrome on the trike, so I selected these Copper look springs for both seats.
After the work on the seat springs we moved on to mocking up the engine cage. This is made from more steel rod to give us an idea of where the piping for the cage will fit.
Engine cage mock up
A rough mock up was made, and then we started work on the first mounting point. We decided on using the body shell mounting points as being the ideal point for anchoring the cage on the top of the trike.
First part of the engine cage
The rest of the cage was constructed in much the same way with bending of the tube then welding in place.
Finally it was time to move on to construction of the bash plate on the front of the trike. For this we got to play with the plasma cutter!
What a great toy this is, anything that produces sparks like that has to be cool.
Plasma cutting in progress
Once the plate was cut out we heated the metal up so that we could bend it around a former, in this case a bit of scaffold pole on some axle stands, and then bent it into shape with myself and Jace acting as weights on either end of the plate. All i’m gonna say is that 10mm steel plate is bloody hard to bend even when heated to a cherry glow on the bend line.
Once bent it was installed onto the front of the trike and welded into place.
The bash plate installed and doing its job
A fare amount has been achieved in the last week with the bespoke engine cage, being constructed, the bash plate in place and the seat mountings complete.
The final parts of construction still need to be done, a couple of brackets for the hand brake cables to go under the horns, a bracket for the clutch cable, and a small backrest for me are still required to be fabbed and constructed.
Once done, and I keep saying this, it will be powder coating and then the rebuild will be on!
Engine Bits – The Final Parts A New Look