Indian Tadpole

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fasteddy

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Curt,

I'm laughing at the plastic ends now you pointed them out. It wouldn't take much to put the age appropriate ones on but he probably has a top for the box and doesn't usually leave it off. I just took a quick look at the coil and didn't see them. That is one of the things that I try to avoid on the tri car.

Steve.
 
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curtisfox

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Yep! looked again and see a black wire on the coil, LOL. Ya just cut the plastic and replace with heat shrink would be better, the old saying haste make wast. Must of been in a hurry, i may have do it also but then redone. That's sometime the way it goes............Curt
 
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fasteddy

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Allen,

It is a rather nice vehicle isn't it. I had a buggy that someone made into an electric car in the early 1970's. It was rude and crude and the local police didn't find it amusing that I was riding it up and down the main street of the little town I lived in unlicensed and with just one wheel scrub brakes and no lights.

I would have rebuilt it into something a lot better but I only paid $150 for it and the buggy it was based on was worth close to a $1,000 at the time so I sold it and then restored it as a buggy for the new owner.

It had a tiller for steering mounted in the front and used a spool and cable for turning the axle but it turned the complete front axle and was hard to use. I did drive an authentic reproduction of an early car with tiller steering (Year and make now forgotten.) that a friend of mine built in the mid 60's and it was a bit of a learning curve in that you had to get used to pushing and pulling the tiller bar since it was mounted on the side of the car. It had proper tie rods and tie rod ends and just the wheels turned.
The two wheel band brakes on the rear axle meant that you needed to pick your stopping distances very carefully.

With this steering the tiller mounts into the forks so I'd guess that it would be fairly easy to use being directly mounted to the forks. Though our Intrepid Wheelwoman would strongly object I'm sure, it might be a good candidate for electric power though perhaps a Villiers or maybe a Briggs and Stratton could coaxed to provide power.

Some tubing and a pipe hickey and the side rails would be ready in an afternoon. Some of the wagon and buggy restorers sell two passenger buggy seats in 36" an 40" widths with the wood frame installed and just need to be upholstered. I believe they were around $300 for the larger one and they are fiberglass.
Take my word for it they are a lot cheaper and faster than making your own.

Steve.
 
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fasteddy

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I did get down to the garage the past couple of days and got some photos to give everyone an idea of what finally happened. all the time I was trying to come up with a way to hook up the throttle cable to the carb I'm muttering to myself that there is a way to do it and when I find it it will be embarrassingly easy. I was right for once.

I was trying to pull the lever from the front and that didn't leave enough room for the spring to compress and pull the card lever on fully. While searching for something I found a piece of metal and cut it to size and realized that if I used a bolt with a hole drilled through it near the head I could feed the cable through the hole and tighten the nut down and trap the throttle cable between the bolt head and the piece of metal acting as the hook up to the carb. I'll put a better spring in it when I button it up but the one in the photo was handy to see if it would work.

Here are the photo on Photobucket. You can see an explanation of what I did on the bottom of some of the photos.

Steve

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/ab228/speedydick/Indian Tri-car Build/DSC_0044_zpshi4i673c.jpg
 
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fasteddy

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A lot of minor changing things around on the bike that I didn't like but not to much to show for the effort. Waiting to get the camper into the brake shop over the next few days. I haven't driven for the last year and a half until yesterday and went out to get some gas and the brake pedal is about on the floor.

As soon as it's repaired I'll be off to get the metal to finish the tri car. The machinist has to do his magic of course but that shouldn't take long.

Steve.
 
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fasteddy

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Just called the brake and muffler shop a while ago. Our old shop closed down when the fellas retired and the search is on for another one. Get a hold of their top guy/manager and tell him that there are all new brakes in the camper but the brake pedal is nearly on the floor and it's not leaking anywhere.

Tell him it's been sitting for a year and a half. He advises me to drive it around for a while and wear the rust off the rotors and drums. Tell Zippy once again that the brakes are on the floor and barely pump up enough to stop it at ten miles an hour. He repeats that this is the way to do it because he doesn't have a way to get the rust off them so he has to put all new parts in and that is usually very expensive.

I'm was braced for this since I never trust a place that has Budget in their name.

Steve.
 
MEASURE TWICE

MEASURE TWICE

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I did brakes in the past a few times. This probably is going over what you already tried, but hopefully without offending, you have to level the amount of fluid in the reservoir. Are the air bubble in the fluid in the reservoir?

Other I have heard on some vehicles is drive in reverse and push on the brakes to self adjust. Then forward again and press the brake. This a few times and it self adjusts.

Even with the self adjusting using the above method there may be a star wheel that is accessed from I remember behind the wheel. That means the wheel can stay on and you just have to just use a screwdriver to lever it clockwise or count clockwise which adjust how soon the pad touch. There is a small rubber plug seal that is removed to access the star wheel adjust on the drum brake type.

I even have the old tool that has one end for the spring to put on an off with drum type and the other end has the screwdriver slot type end for use as lever to adjust star wheel adjustment in the drum brakes.

Disc Brakes I don't think I ever have done. If this is a really older vehicle they may have used on not just rear wheels drums, but also on the front wheels too.

Sorry for a bit of long winded if no help. I would be interested though what it was when you figure out if otherwise it just sat unused and was good before it sat.
 
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fasteddy

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Hello M.T.

I'm sure it's because it sat for so long. I don't know how old the brake fluid was before I parked it but by now it's ancient. The front brakes were all replaced a couple of years before it was not used and the rear drum and shoes were about 3 1/2 months old.

I'll call another shop tomorrow and see if they are interested in working on it and if not I'll do it myself. I have all the tools including a professional vacuum brake bleeder. The only thing missing is the desire to do it.

Thank you for your suggestions. They were spot on the money.

Steve.
 
MEASURE TWICE

MEASURE TWICE

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You could use the emergency brake and it can't have any bubbles, but of course it is only for rear wheels and has not as much force. Now I remember I actually did do disc brakes once as I remember the package of disc brake quieter jell you put behind the pads it came with the pads.
 
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fasteddy

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Having had mechanical brakes in Model A's I'm no fan of them and just in the rear axle is not very good. I used to hear from all the experts how the brakes in the old Fords could be set up to stop just like hydraulic brakes but I always noticed that their cars were never set up that well.
 
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curtisfox

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KOOL, you find the nicest stuff. Had to laugh as when i had my Model A, i was fallowing a friend who had a 41 convertible. Come to the light he stopped and so did right into his car. Now if he would of had a bumper it would of just stopped, but it hit his bumper brackets and poked two hole in his rear roll pan. They were not the best brakes.........Curt
 
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fasteddy

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Thank you Curt and they were indeed not the best brakes. My parents used to say how much better they were though than the older cars that had two brakes. Either on the back or occasionally on opposite corners, front and rear.

A lot of them had band brakes which were a small step above a piece of wood dragging on the road with a chunk of car tire nailed to it.

Steve.
 
MEASURE TWICE

MEASURE TWICE

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fasteddy said:
Thank you Curt and they were indeed not the best brakes. My parents used to say how much better they were though than the older cars that had two brakes. Either on the back or occasionally on opposite corners, front and rear.

A lot of them had band brakes which were a small step above a piece of wood dragging on the road with a chunk of car tire nailed to it.

Steve.
Click to expand...
Funny you should mention opposite corners. For a moment I thought maybe that would present some problems, but I guess not so much. Opposite corners I remember my father with a few relatives in a car driving on an expressway. A wheel passed the car they were in. As it turns out it was not from completely behind though. It was a rear driver side wheel of their car. It came off and was proper in passing on the left as in US. The number of people seating in the car I think were three. You can probably guess where the vacant seat was. They pulled over carefully as you would do after thinking that is my wheel after it passes you.

Just know you can steer on snow with rear emergency brakes. It also involves having fun doing 180's, 360's, etc., but it involves only making turns either left or right and switching the direction means stopping and having to adjust the brakes so one side pulls more than another. This also from a well maintained car that loves road salt that is used to melt snow. Pick up the floor mat and you have more ventilation from beneath the car. It was not too much longer that vehicle was dispensed with.
 
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curtisfox

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Now that you mentioned, it that same Model A stopped on me once and had to two it home. Got it in the yard and jacket it up, the rear wheel fell off, broken axle.Why it didn't fall off on the way home i don't know, good lord willing i guess.

Got 20 mpg with it,low gear ratio rear end and all. Would be interesting to see what would happen with some modern tech. on that old engine. 30mpg maybe.

Loved that old car.............Curt
 
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