Thread: Trike, take 2

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I saw one driving down the road the other day but I ave no idea what it was made out of. I was going to get a pic of it for you but a piece fell off so I slowed way down and waited for the right opportunity to get ahead of it. It was sketch city.

I think you're making the best choice. It will look more cyclish with the tube style frame up front IMO.

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I agree with Ryan (fwiw) in regards to the tube chassis and appearance. I think it's a good choice.

I've the cage tacked together; time for some finish welding plus adding some gussets to the strut and upper control arm mounts. Then I think I'll start getting the frame rails figured out.

How'd you get all the bent tubing? DIY or ordered out?

I've been borrowing a tubing bender from one of the electrical contractors I use at work. I tried using a Harbor Freight hydraulic pipe bender but it doesn't like that chrome moly tubing. They should rename it a pipe kinker instead of a pipe bender.

I have a Harbor Freight pipe bender. It is OK for gentle bends in galvanized or black iron well pipe, but will kink tubing (mild steel, chromoly, etc. Don't even dream of bending exhaust pipe with it). It will even kink well pipe if you try to bend more than a few degrees (except 1/2 inch pipe which it does quite nicely).

For future reference - The trick to making full bends is sand. Cap one end of the pipe and then fill the pipe with damp sand. Tamp it down tight with a broom handle until the pipe is full and cap the other end. Now you can bend it without kinking. When done bending, uncap the ends and remove the sand. This is how I did all the bends on my Track-T frame and roll bar. It added a little time and work to the project, but it turned out fine.

Ok, I tried dry sand but same result. Probably didn't pack well enough.

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

I saw one driving down the road the other day but I ave no idea what it was made out of. I was going to get a pic of it for you but a piece fell off so I slowed way down and waited for the right opportunity to get ahead of it. It was sketch city.

I think you're making the best choice. It will look more cyclish with the tube style frame up front IMO.

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It was probably the one I was mentioning earlier in this thread

Here's a pic of my roadster that shows the roll bar, side and front nerf bars, and hairpin radius rods pretty clearly. All those parts are made from black iron well pipe and bent on a Harbor Freight pipe bender. There are other bent hoops under the dash and side bars in the body that are not visible. The nerf bars and front radius rods are made from 1/2 inch black pipe and bent without sand stuffing. The roll bar and the inside body bars (various sizes) had to be stuffed because the first attempts kinked after bending maybe 20 - 30 degrees from straight. Yes, the sand must be damp and packed very tight.

The cage looks good. I'm looking forward to watching the progress on this.

Nice progress. That will look a lot better than the factory structure.

Got the cage welded up, time to start figuring out the frame rails.

One thing that I would do is remove the struts and replace with mock-up bars set to a length that produces 60 percent of the shock travel in compression. I built my car that way and even did the front wheel alignment with them.

I put the entire engine and suspension from a 62 corvair into a Beatle when I was 17. Back then I wasn't smart enough to remove the too-stiff rear springs and get the rear swing axle properly aligned.

Good idea, Dave. I'll try that.