TRIKES

This is what it was like when she first had it. At a distance it didn't look to bad. A closer inspection revealed a "few" jobs that needed to be done. 1st and most obvious was the need for a chain guard. Next was the paint work, which was a spray can job. The painter being from the school of painters that paints only what you can see while standing up. There was also other jobs to be done either because of need or for cosmetic reasons. The chain guard was plasma cut from an old canteen work top, drilled and bolted into place with stainless fasteners.

Two jobs that needed to be done showed up in the first week of her riding it, these showed up as a lot of movement in the front end. On inspection of the girder forks I found that most of the bushes were worn out

so these were replaced this removed some of the problem the rest was virtually cured by gusseting the head stock.

The rest was eliminated through the fitment of a sidecar tyre in place of the skinny ribbed one it did have. This eased the verbal attacks on me (I managed to remove the ear plugs for a while).

As the go department was now sorted I then had to sort out the whooooooa! Before she rode off into the sunset, or the back of a bus, even though she has never bothered that much about brakes! Main cause of this was the bike master cylinder was not shifting enough fluid, to the rear brakes, and bottoming out

The mod' of putting 2 master cyls in tandem to double the quantity of fluid I saw on a trike at the NCC Hereford show. By making a new mounting bracket this sorted out another job as well. Bringing the foot rest back to a more comfortable position. The near side rest was moved as well. The D.O didn't fancy sitting on it looking as if she was peddling it along, she reckoned she gave up peddling a trike at the age of three.

For some reason the electric foot wasn't connected. All it needed was a solenoid, from the breakers, and a bit of wire. So that job was done. This was for my comfort as she kicked hard enough as it was, without having her right leg muscle built up from starting the motor.

A purely cosmetic job was to change the zorsts from four into four to a four into two set up. The neighbours really loved me using the grinder for 2hrs solid, on a hot summer afternoon, to clean the pipes up ready to paint.

Another job I did was to redo the rear mudguard mounts and spacers. This was done as bolts straight through the 'guards and stays and spaced with assorted nuts and washers was just too much of a bodge for me. So I drilled the stays and brazed in captive nuts. Then I made spacers for between the stays and mudguard and for on top of the guard so that the guards were held securely but not kinked by the bolts.

There was many more minor jobs, the only major one left was the paint work. After much in depth discussion (rows) it was decided she could have the left over metallic purple from my bike and any blue that she fancied to buy. Labour charges were limited to copious cups of tea and verbal abuse (i.e telling me I should do it like this and not that way you plonker!) Makes Sadam look like mother Teresa by comparison.

TRAAA! the finished article.

The trike was sold because it was heavy to steer and it was a hard tail. Due to her worsening health she was physically unable to ride it eventually.

COMING SOON ( I hope) Hardly Ableto and her "new" trike