The B-3, a Morgan-inspired original-design Reverse trike.

[1970manxsr]

Hey Robbovius: you could always make the cowl cover out of doped fabric.... like the early cars in the 1900's.

manx

[robbovius]

well in keeping with the aircraft fuselage theme, I'm likely going to make the rear cowl cover out of the red marine vinyl, and attach it with snaps so that I have access to the "trunk" area. those spreader bars between teh two cowls will evoke the stringers on a tube-and-rag fuselage nicely, I think.

now that I've been thru the fwd cowl-making process once, doing another would be even easier. it wasn't so bad really, and I'm confident I could make a much nicer piece on the second try. that'll happen later though, right now the goal is getting the vehicle inspected. this V1.0 cowl will likely live there until next summer at least. It's not critical for roadworthiness (unlike the control arms, those were a must-do over.

I'm going to play around with annealing some of my 3003 scraps and see how hard it is to make compound curves. Eventually the rear cowl will wind up being aluminum with a door on top for trunk access

[RoosterBooster]

yeah, i want to try my hands on compound curves as well.
i`m thinking to may pick up an English wheel at HF next time its on sale (even when i usually try to avoid that crap they are selling )
it seems the frame is useless , but the rollers are not bad and hard to duplicate for that price
a DIY C-frame of heavy wall tubing should fix the deflection issues of the wobbly HF frame ...

[fredvv44]

Ever seen a Velorex? One was driven across the USA.
Fred V

[robbovius]

Hey Fred, yeah I've seem pics of those Velorex reverse trikes, they're kinda neat.

so after climbing on tuesday night, I got home to fine TREASURE!

counterclockwise from the little brown box on top, Holley 0-15 PSI fuel pressure gage, yammie XS direct replacement Electronic speedometer from Mikes XS, and the second Yamaha XS850 headlight assembly, from ebay...

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...which, last night, mounted up real nice.

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but prior to fitting the second yammie headlight assy (love that flat profile), I go on with making (out of leftover .050 5052 interior panel material, for a little extra stiffness) corner attachment brackets for the fwd cowl. seen here, the drivers side, prior to drilling.

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and the pasenger side, clamped for match drilling.

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and then riveted, and attached to the frame tube with 10-24 stainless phillips panheads and rivnuts. I can vouch for the effectivity of the HF rivnut pliers. works - in the name of our ancestors - mint.

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you'll notice I'd attached this first bracket inside the cowl material, but, it looks rather, er, cobby, as I am so fond of saying. perhaps even, too cobby for me, which is saying something I'll admit...

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but, then, I match drilled the drivers side with the bracket on the outside of the cowl skin, and well, it looked so much better. still cobby, but in that whole industrial/steampunk/clean rat kind of way of which I have become so enamored...

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...and so I drilled out the passenger side rivets and reattached it to suit. I have to admit, it took every ounce of my not-incosiderable will to refrain from pulling off all the protective plastic and basking in that awesome silvery glow. it SO does not look totally horrendous

then I arrived at a juncture. I want to create a windscreeen for it, and I have just the thing in mind, can see it in my head, as it were, but the goal is getting it inspection, so I think I'm going to remove the fwd cowl and paint it (rustoleum royal red from a rattle can) and then mocve on to finishing the dashboard and gage installations. I got a can of minwax faux-walnut tinted polyurethane which I'll brush onto the dashboard tonight, and while its drying I'll overhaul the tachometer back to peak functionality. the electronic speedo is going to need some cable extension and bracketry to work, so that'll be a project for after the inspection is complete, as will be hooking up the mechanical oil pressure gage. I may atually do the fabric boat-tail cover before the gages. we shall see. at any rate I'm ditching the open mike for the B-3 three tonight, Proj FWD!

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

The velorex is interesting. Too hot? Just pull over and roll back the tarp a bit. This guy built his from scratch around an old honda and a vw beam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0oAJSZLdw

He also built a 186 mph 125cc streamliner, 150 mph with 50cc.

[fredvv44]

That guy is really interesting. I love the 1905ish bicycle engine.
Fred V

[fredvv44]

Fred it surprises me that your carbs can take the 3.5 PSI without having problems. maybe I should shange my float settings to get the needles to shut off the flow a bit more firmly, and sooner. I got the Holley FP regulator saturday, I'm still waiting for the gage. in the instructions with the MR asket FP regulator, it mentioned mounting it near the carburetor.

I remounted the regulator yesterday up front between the carbs and it drove well set at 3.5#. I'll try lowering that pressure. The pump puts out 6# and It was not flooding at that pressure. I still get a lot of popping from the exhaust. What would cause that?
Fred V

[robbovius]

fred, popping on deceleration?

[carguy123]

Usually popping is a sign that air is getting into the exhaust

[fredvv44]

Thanks,
When I'm warming it up by goosing the throttle it pops when I let it off. Somewhere I read that is normal for some engines. This is a Moto Guzzi.
Fred V

[robbovius]

well, when the engine is cold and running on the choke/enrichener, unburned fuel vapor winds up in the exhaust stream, due to all the extra fuel being poured down thw carb throat when its cold. that unburned fuek gets into the exhaust, and the hot exhaust gasses can make it combust, when it meets the oxygen in the exhaust pipe.

don't those delortto carbs have accelerator pumps?

[fredvv44]

well, when the engine is cold and running on the choke/enrichener, unburned fuel vapor winds up in the exhaust stream, due to all the extra fuel being poured down thw carb throat when its cold. that unburned fuek gets into the exhaust, and the hot exhaust gasses can make it combust, when it meets the oxygen in the exhaust pipe.

don't those delortto carbs have accelerator pumps?

Yes they do and I put richer jets in it too. I'm not that familiar with bike carbs; I came into 3 wheels from the sports car side but that now makes sense since it clears up when I drive it.
Thanks for the input,
Fred V

[robbovius]

[quote="fredvv44don't those delortto carbs have accelerator pumps?[/quote]
Yes they do and I put richer jets in it too. I'm not that familiar with bike carbs; I came into 3 wheels from the sports car side but that now makes sense since it clears up when I drive it.
Thanks for the input,
Fred V[/quote]

Ah, so the popping makes even more sense now, since every time you goose it, you're giving it another shot of raw gas from the accelerator pump.

so, last night, a little bit of detail and dashboard fun.

my groovy little header-wrap tach cable heat shield needed cleaning up so I took it off, folded the ends in - mostly - and installed new duesenberg hose clamps. much nicer...

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the dash board has been in there since I made it, way back in, geez, I forget, wait - earliest pic dates say may of 2012 - so I took it out and removed all the gages...

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...and set about peeling off all that masking tape. that was a fun 75 minutes and the masking tape has been on there since 5/12 it really liked being there

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Protip: don't leave masking tape on for a year.

But I won the wrestling match, and then cleaned up the leftover adhesive with prepsol, and then cleaned off the prepsol with old race kart fuel (methanol - I've saved that since the last year I raced, 1999)

set out to dry...

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then the fun project, overhauling the tacho so that it actually responded to engine speed.

can I get it apart without wreckiing it?

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apparently so!

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of course, to get it apart, you have to unbend the nice flat crimp that holeds the face plate on...that I suppose counts as "wrecking" because it'll never look that good again, but butting it up against the dashboard face should hide most of the damage. unfortunately that's the only way to do it. ;-/ anyway, I squirted a little bit of penetrating oil on the needle axle and it immediately worked better.

sry, photobucket link to the phone viddy flicking the needle after lubricating the mechanism...

http://s183.photobucket.com/user/robbovius/media/850%203%20wheeler/20130926_214617_zpsc1c644b9.mp4.html

ever taken a mechanical tachomter apart? they're incredibly simple devices. hopefully I'll get it back together tonight.

[robbovius]

Continuing the dashboard finishing...

.5 birch plywood dash all cleaned up and sanded, edge routed to clear the fwd cowl fasteners, where they thread through the cowl hoop, ready for stain and polyurethane - brushed-on minwax, if you must know. its up in the attic workshop (nice and toasty up there) curing even as we, er, type?

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then, finally, I modified the stock turn signal/oil lite indicator cable to connect with new indicators that will plug into the dash panel.

adding the bullet conectors...

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...and the finished product. two blue lamps for turn signals, one red for oil pressure.

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the orginal yamaha indicator panel also had a lamp to show a burnt-out low beam headlight, but I deleted that, cutting and capping the wires.

In between there somewhere I reassembled the overhauled tachometer, and cleaned the ignition switch contacts, which seems to have cleared the 1Vdc loss that was going thru it previously (tested with a pair of 9V batteries in series).

should be able to get the dashboard back in tomorrow night, and then wire up the gage lamps on the voltmeter, CHT, and oil pressure. I'm still on the fence about installing the ammeter. I have a convenient tap, but, I dunno, the voltmeter works, would be nice to see current draw, though. and there's already a hole in the dashboard for it. we'll see.