Indian Tadpole

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

I'm looking forward to it Steve, - in fact I'm hoping to do some tool dusting today

That lovely old tricycle is something I'm going to keep in mind especially now that I've got a new welder. I purchased a really good German made welder just before I became ill (yet again! - grrrrrrrr....) and I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.
Hopefully I can find a good canework supplier not too far from home as I really would like to have a go at making some vintage vehicle related pieces. A whole sidecar body would be great, but I'm not going to try running before I've even learned how to crawl.

Yeah, - I still feel really sad about Mum as I always thought I'd be able to look after her until her dying day. Unfortunately Mum was suffering from increasing memory loss and confusion and I was finding it more difficult to care for her properly. Then one night Mum got out of bed and had a bad fall that put her in hospital for three weeks. It was her care team at the hospital that recognised that I wasn't coping with Mum's care anymore and set in motion her 24hr care.

 

[fasteddy]

Annie, I'm off to clean my tools and that up tomorrow as well. Purchased some shelving and have to put it together and get the piles of boxes off the floor and make room for the tricar again.
We've had a brief break in our rainy winter and I should be taking advantage of it. I need to set up and make the springs that suspend the seat in place and the front that is the tricar needs to be sandblaster so I can prime it all.

Steve.

 

[Mr.B.]

I'm curious, how wide is your build?

It has occurred any thing I build has to fit through a 32” doorway- That might nix my Tri-car project... :-(

-Kirk

 

[Ludwig II]

Try this:

 

[fasteddy]

Hi Kirk,
The tricar will be about 52" with the wheels on it. Remember I'm trying to make it as close as I can to the original so I was working to try and find the average seat size and scaled everything from there. In the end I used my office chair for size.

If I was making one from the start of my own design it would be narrower than this. Since most of my friends tend to be nicknamed, Beef, Ox and Moose I built the seat to a generous proportion to match
theirs

The springs on the Indian tricar sit off to the outside of the seat and that adds to the width as well. No good reason the springs can't go under the seat that I can see unless the skirt of the chair is in the way.
When I build the next tricar that is where I think that I will place them and I'll use buggy seat springs if there are springs at all. They come in a two foot length and they should fit under a chair seat. I have coil springs on the spindles and that may be enough unless you intend to carry passengers for a great distance.
If you tuck the wheels and fenders close to the chair you should be able to get it to fit through the door.
I'm waiting to see the work of art that your going to build.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

Ludwig,
What is that little beauty called? I now have a terrible case of the needs to own one.

Steve.

 

[Ludwig II]

It's a Reyonnah, and now's your chance. But it's not MB money: http://www.handlewithfun.com/lot-details.cfm?SaleCode=BW13&CarID=r211

 

[fasteddy]

Ludwig,
Thank you. Yes I have a bad case of the needs but a far worse case of need the money.
Just a marvelous bit of engineering.

Steve.

 

[Ludwig II]

Post WW2 there were many weird and wonderful devices being built. How about a Bond Microcar? Seats 2, is ideal for short journeys, and although their prices are up from what they were, they're not in the Reyaonnah class.

 

[Ludwig II]

The engine arrangement was essentially the same throughout the differing model years. http://members.multimania.co.uk/bond_club/MarkC.htm

 

[fasteddy]

Ludwig,
I saw one over here maybe 50 years ago in an auto wreckers yard. I looked it all over to find the where he hid the gold bars to help with the price he wanted.
I figured they had to be there to justify what he thought it was worth.

Steve.

 

[Ludwig II]

I, to, am baffled by the price some people place on archaic wrecks. The engines were only ever Villiers, and there was only one late model with a twin cylinder job. The bodies were aluminium sheet rivetted together, 6v electrics, and the first ones had no rear suspension.

They are still comparatively affordable though, work out the exchance rate for the £/moose$ : http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/list/64/

 

[Mr.B.]

Thanks for the info FE!

That may be a deal breaker for me...

But the parts are stored in my shed right now so other that the engine I likely won’t progress much until warmer weather anyway.

Ludwig, that Reyonnah is crazy! Looks like you could take on a river trip too, Ha...!

And I can’t be the only one to see that Bond and immediately think...

“Bond...

James Bond”



-Kirk

 

[Ludwig II]

I've had 2 Reliants, a 700 Regal and an 850 Rialto. The stories of aero instability when attempting the upper reaches of the Regal's performance are well founded. I made it up to 60 one day, and it started wandering at the front and really felt like it wanted to go over backwards. The Rialto, on the other hand, became more stable the faster you went. I am sure that if you had a private road much resembling the M42 motorway, you could reach an indicated 100 with more to come, impeded as you would be by people who thought they were fast in a 1.6 hatchback.

Allegedly.

 

[NEAT TIMES]

Recently watched a hilarious video on U Tube of a older fellow rolling one over several times. He would get bystanders to put him back up0right and off he would go to the next upset! It is funny!!
Ron

 

[Ludwig II]

That's probably Jeremy Motormouth Clarkson on Top Gear. They had to sabotage the car to do it.

There are many who would like to sabotage him.

 

[fasteddy]

Kirk,
I know this is easy enough for a blind man to see but don't you think it's time for a larger building? The truth is I have no idea where the tricar is going to go when it's finished.
The Monark and the sidecar are in the enclosed trailer and it can't stay in the garage. A storage room here is about $220 a month for a 10 x 12 and there is no way I can afford that.
Hope something works out between now and then.

Steve.

 

[Mr.B.]

I wish.

I’m in a historic neighborhood and wouldn’t just build a standard garage, couldn’t afford that now anyway.

I’d like to build a replica carriage house someday as one originally existed on the property until the 1950’s, but that would be even more expensive...

Perhaps I could just build a simple lean-to additional to a hidden side of my shed large enough to store a Tri-car?

But that adds another project to a list already 2 lifetimes long, and I’ve got less than 1/2 left... Ha!

I’ll see how I feel about it in the spring. “-)

Thanks for the encouragement!

And in that vein, keep up the good work brother-

Things do always seem to work out one way or another.

-Kirk

 

[fasteddy]

When I started building the tricar all the photos that people had taken were from the sides and different angles and great distances but never could I find one that was shot head on and close up so that I could see the steering and spindle construction and where the axle support rods were and the angle that they were bent at was a lot of guess work as well. How did the support tubes that go from the neck to the axle braces go? Angle and length?

Many things that you don't think of until you start such as, how far from the spring pads to the spindles? How long should the tube going from the bike to the front axle be? Where should the spring pads be? That tells you how wide the axle is. All this is hard to judge when every photo is shot at an angle with a wheel or something else in the way so you can't get a view of it.

Spending many years of my life scaling antique furniture reproductions from a picture out a magazine to fit the customers available space paid off.

I was working from what I could see and just guessed that I was somewhere on track with what they had done at the factory. Every so often I cruise the net looking to see what someone may have added about Indian tricars and today was a bonanza.

Steve.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...s4GIDg&usg=AFQjCNHLMgutoMcsL5RFkJHAMY3KNld55A

 

[Ludwig II]

I have to say that the number of museums we have over here and our comparatively short distances must be a godsend to anyone restoring or building new.