Velocar cyclecar semi-replica.

I'm going to blame Ludwig for this. He's always distracting me with pictures of fascinating mechanical objects from foreign parts and when he posted this picture I'm afraid it quite turned my head and I haven't been able to think of anything else.



After trying various ways of laying out the rear axle for the Colombe replica and not having much success I can now see the way ahead. A true Zen moment (no axle).
I shall build the Colombe as I intended, but it will have a 16inch moped wheel in place of the trike type rear axle and two balance wheels so I don't make a pratt of myself and have the thing fall over.
I have no idea what this rear wheel was originally fitted to, but somehow I've ended up with two of them. They are very nice, strong spokes, proper cush drive, drum brake an impressive drive sprocket. Everything an Intrepid Wheelwoman could want really. A 20inch bicycle tyre fits nicely on the moped rim too.

The Villiers engine is going to be in a much better position now too and the kickstarter mech that Steve and Silverbear sent me is going to work out very nicely.
So it's still going to be a kind of a cyclecar, but a monocar cyclecar and it is a type of velocar as well because there will be pedals. Yes there are four wheels, but two of them are balance wheels so I don't think I'll have any problems with the local constabulary.

While I was setting all this up one of the cats caught a mouse and decided to present it to me. Only the wee thing was still alive and it was only by the narrowest margin that I managed to avoid it running up my skirt. Then I was in the cats' black books because I'd let the mouse escape.
My daughter later confirmed that I'd vocalised a rather impressive, 'Eek!' that she'd heard quite clearly from inside the house.

Yes it's all about looking and thinking and mulling things over SB

The monocar in Ludwig's picture is quite narrow through the body whereas I'm planning to make mine wider so the bodyshell covers the balance wheels instead of them being in pods outside the body. I'll still have my Hercules trike for heavy haulage, so if this wee monocar/cyclcar can handle the grocery shopping and other trips I make into the township to pay bills and etc I'll be very pleased.
At the moment I've been using my English Hercules ladies bicycle to perform that duty so the carrying capacity doesn't have to be that great.

I'm glad those photos were useful SB. Having the rear of the body hinge upwards like that seemed to be the ideal solution for having good access to the 'works'.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing how your own design process proceeds and finally becomes a completed cyclecar. It certainly is wonderful creative fun and I know I've been a lot more well in myself since I've been working on my own projects.

Ludwig II said:

I looked at the balance wheels, will they be cambered inwards to enhance their strength?

Will they also be raised off the floor a little or have some sort of suspension so the back and front wheels are always in contact with the road surface?

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I'm strongly considering copying the French 'Monotrace' when it comes to setting up the balance wheels Ludwig. I can see this being one area of the velocar that might take some experimentation to get right.

Tonight I made use of my newly cleaned up workbench which made working on the frame so much easier. I discovered an 'Auto Union' logo on the moped wheel's brake shoes, so it looks like the wheel may have come from either a Puch or a DKW.
Most of the work tonight centred around getting the moped wheel to fit properly into the Raleigh 20 dropouts. At close of play the wheel was sitting off-centre because there's a threaded sleeve nut on the brake drum side that needs to be shortened. Rather than make a mess of it I decided to leave that job for my next session.

There will be some extra strengthening pieces added to the rear triangle as the Raleigh 20 frame stays are a little on the thin side. I'm hoping that I will be able to hire a gas welding set as I really would prefer to braze the frame together.

Please ignore all the junk in the background of the photos, my workshop clean up hasn't reached that far yet.

Thanks Steve, that sounds to be a good way to approach setting up the balance wheels. This is all a bit of an experiment in that when the velocar is underway the balance wheels shouldn't be touching the road which to my mind means that it's still a two wheeled vehicle.
If I'm wrong and the local Police guys and girls send me home with my tail between my legs then I suppose it won't be too much work to replace everything with a normal trike axle. I really want to try this though and I guess I'm not alone in this as many an inventor in the past has had a try at designing such a vehicle. The one in the patent diagram is a particular favourite of mine. i have no idea if it was actually built or not, but it's not the only one to be found by using Google patent search.

For the sake of general neatness of design I was planning on having the balance wheels tucked well out of the way under the bodywork. With the Monotrace setup which is stuck well outside the bodywork I do wonder how often their owners fell over the things.

That's a good point about the shocks making the balance wheels less jarring to use Steve. One possible way to raise the wheels would be by having the top shock mounting on a lift arm. It would be nice and tidy and would reduce the need for any additional links between the lower 'A' arms and the chassis.

fasteddy said:

Now I'm drawing plans up on the pad of paper I keep beside the computer. That's better, I just slapped my hand and said NO.

Steve.

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Oh yes, the temptations of the inventive mind

Your outline of how the balance wheels might work is exactly the setup I would need Steve, - thanks for that.

I loved the story of the chap who forgot to put his foot down. Having been a keen sidecarist myself I completely understand how that might happen.

Once again a picture Ludwig posted a link to could well be of great use to this project. The approach is different in that the balance wheels are fixed, but otherwise it's a close cousin. I abandoned the idea of having the engine mounted at the front because it would have made installing a pedal crank and bottom bracket difficult; - and to stay within the definition of a motorised bicycle pedals are essential.

Ludwig II said:

If you want to keep the cg low, what about placing the engine behind the back wheel?

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Definitely worth thinking about Ludwig.

Alright! (rolls up sleeves) I've got a month and a half to finish this thing. After messing around with steel and trying to weld things and not being happy with wot I ended up with I'm going back to how the French did it. Like most cyclecars of the time the Colombe used a wooden chassis so I'm going to build one just like in the old magazine illustrations.



With all the other French articles & etc I have on building velocars and cyclecars in wood I've got a pretty darn good resource to draw on so why on earth was I messing around with all those sticks of rust in progress!

This afternoon I rode my bicycle down to the local timber yard and purchased two lengths of 3x2 timber (we call it 50x75 for some dopey reason). Let me say I'm glad I'm not planning on building a house because somehow while I wasn't looking timber has got expensive. For heaven's sake we grow great plantations of the stuff here in New Zealand, - only the problem is that we export all the good stuff and as a result local supplies are at a premium.
To top it off I had to get the timber yard guy to mess around and find me lengths of timber that didn't have any knots in it. In the end I had to accept two lengths with minor knots in non critical areas that I knew I could cut around. Something tells me that I'm going to go hunting in the demolition yards from now on in order to find timber that's actually worth using.

A story from my past has just popped into my head so I'll tell it to all of you.
In my twenties I had a friend who ran a classic motorcycle business and he did restorations and repairs. Quite often there would be kids of around 14 and 15 who would hang about his shop to look at the bikes. They were fairly harmless and sometimes my friend would play tricks on them. One time when I visited his shop there was my friend with a small diameter length of dowel in the business end of his arc welder and he was explaining to them completely straight faced how it was possible to weld wood.

Anyway that's enough from me. Things to do and all that

A wonderful story Silverbear
When my children were small I tried telling them that butterflies made butter. Their instant response was, 'You're telling fibs.' Perhaps I would have done better with telling them about earthworms having eyes

I'm going to do the hybrid thing with the Colombe. My Hercules trike is in process of having its hubmotor wheel replaced with a 450watt electric motor so I've decided to use it on the Colombe, I know some folk might say that a 250watt hubmotor wheel couldn't pull the skin off rice pudding, but it did remarkably well on my trike. If the idea works out fine I can always get a more powerful hubmotor later on.

An explore under the house yesterday turned up a Giant Boulder frame with a good solidly made suspension fork which should work with the hubmotor quite nicely. As fascinating as the Colombe's original system of 'traction avant' might be this is going to be as close as it gets. Fortunately most of my cheat will be hidden by the bodywork.
Last night was mostly spent with plotting and planning and digging out the parts I'm going to need. As tempting as it was to start cutting wood I managed to restrain myself. Today I'll do some CAD work (cardboard aided design) to check body proportions and the chassis layout and then the saws will come out.

In case anybody is wondering the part built chassis for this is hanging from the rafters in my garage workshop. I will more than likely return to it over the Winter when a cheery blaze from a brazing torch will be much appreciated.



This is a classic photo of chaps building velocars back in the heroic pioneering days of such things. Some of you will have seen it before, but I'm posting it here because it's so much like the sort of thing I'm going to be doing myself over the course of the next month and a half.

A cloche hat is being fought over on our local auction site as I type this. I scent victory and the scent of it is sweet.




maniac57,- I absolutely love these old photos. They represent a time when the most amazing vehicles were made in small workshops from ordinary materials with ordinary hand tools; - and then as you say driven at breakneck speeds.

I want; - I very much want. And my new year's resolution is to build wonderful vehicles using just the same methods and materials as they did back then. Hi-tech who needs it.

My idea of a proper velocar, - the young lady in the driver's seat is almost wearing the right sort of hat too.


Chassis frame for Ajatar2 undergoing restoration.