Hi SB, Thanks for your message. I saw your trike thread, and I can see that it will be a unique machine, built from scratch. I look forward to seeing it progress. Also liked your thread on making a head light.
My differential is holding up well.
In a previous post I mentioned that the freewheels gave up. As wirth the shifting hubs that I destroyed on my chopper, the failure was my fault. The Right Hand Reverse freewheel adapter allowed me to use 2 RH freewheels in the diff. The caveat' of this innovative reverse adapter fitting is that the freewheel wrench will not fit so I could not get the freewheel flange completely tight on the adapter. I figured that a little gentile driving would tighten it up. At some point during that gentile driving, it did tighten, and also it sheared the shoulder stop off of the adapter, which caused the diff to fail.
The take-home message here is that there are some big stresses in the drive train, and be sure that everything is snug before applying power. This collaberates what I learned before: If anything is loose, it will either break, or you will lose it. I have left various bike parts all over town. Loctite is your friend.
To fix the diff, I used my homemade brazed freewheel/adapter assembly (shown in a previous post) and a new heavy duty serviceable freewheel from SBP. I have been driving this arrangement hard for a few months and it is still hanging in there. My conclusion is that the cheap freewheels will probably hold up, if properly installed, snug, aligned, and then say a little prayer.
The differential alleviates the binding stress on the back wheels during a turn, but the most significant stress may be the lateral stress during a turn. A bystander mentioned that my rim was bending in on the inside wheel during a turn. I could not see it, but I believe it, because a skinny bicycle wheel just will not take much lateral load. On a 2 wheel bike, we lean into a turn so the stress is in line with the plane of the wheel. On a 3 or 4 wheel beast, a turn is going to put big lateral stresses on the wheels. I think this may be why most 3 and 4 wheel vehicles have small wheels and solid rims. Cars with wire wheels have relatively short, heavy spokes, and heavy hubs and rims. For this reason, I put wider wheels with 11 gage spokes on the back of the trike. For my next trike, I plan to design it around 21" x 4" back wheels, as used in the OCC choppers. This trike now has 24" x 4" wheels, and they are holding up, but 21" wheels will have much less lateral stress during the turns.
The tool box and bags over the front wheel does help hold it down, so now it is a safe daily driver, but keep it slow on the turns, even with a diff, other wise a wheel could suddenly collapse. With this happy thought, I think I will go for a ride.
Keep up the good work, SB.