Velocar cyclecar semi-replica.

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

I'll look into those Workman hubs Steve as they might just work out with this project. The hubs on their own will be fine as I know how to build up a spoked wheel and it will help to keep the freight cost down.
The last time I checked a Peerless axle cost near enough to $NZ300.00 here in Kiwiland, but luckily the one I found second hand was a fraction of that price. After taking it apart today I discovered it's in good condition too.

A fair amount of measuring and creative staring has been going on, but I think I've finally figured out how to modify this axle.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

It looks like the Workman trike axles have a keyway and the hub is held on with a nut.

 

[fasteddy]

That's about twice what we'd pay here for a new Peerless axle. I knew shipping costs were a bear to New Zealand and Australia. Harry76 had a Victa engine that Silverbear and I coveted for it's looks and power but the shipping costs when I checked it out were every bit as bad as Harry had said they would be. At least we got to look at the photos.

It does indeed look to be a pretty straight forward bit of machining as you had mentioned. It is a great benefit to have a metal working lathe and what's more the knowledge of how to use it. My one attempt at machine shop when I was in school was to make a ball-peen hammer on the lathe. The head of it was a work of art if I do say so myself but regrettably the handle weighed twice what the head of it did. I never brought it home and tossed it out at the end of the school year.

My grandfather was a tool and die maker and worked for a large electric lighting company in Birmingham England where he had apprenticed and had become the head of production. He was also the man in charge of installing the lighting in the Titanic.
I just couldn't bring my self to show him the hammer and was afraid if I brought it home he would by chance see it so it went into the scrap barrel and my brief attempt at a machinist career ended.

It would be nice if you are able to use the hubs for the Columbe. One more item crossed of the list.

Steve.

 

[BarelyAWake]

A surprisingly comprehensive database of 3-wheelers, thought ya'll might be interested;

http://www.3wheelers.com/AZDatabase/AZ_view.php

 

[fasteddy]

BarelyAWake,

Thank you for the most enjoyable reading. Amazing in a way how many of the early three wheelers were Tri Cars or Fore Cars as they were sometimes called. So many of them had such a short lifespan.

Steve.

Steve.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Yes that's a fascinating A-Z resource. Thanks for posting that

They missed one of the H's though; - the Harding Invalid Car which is a favourite of mine. Very similar in many ways to what I'm trying to achieve with my Colombe project.

 

[silverbear]

Barely,
Thanks for the great resource!
SB

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Arrrrrgggh! - all play out in the carport is cancelled. A completely out of season tropical cyclone is passing over the country with 130kph winds and 120mm of rain expected in our region overnight. All the usual stuff with flood warnings and severe weather warnings we get around here. They're even warning motorists to stay off the roads!

Yesterday evening I realised that I was fast heading towards full sized cyclecar territory in that I was laying out a fairly heavyweight vehicle (relatively speaking) that was getting beyond bicycle based technology. Sooooo I cleared everything away and hauled out the tricycle axle again. Yes it's not a famously strong design, but I use the same axle on my Hercules and I got over the tendency for the axle to bend in the middle by fitting additional bracing. This axle drives only on one side, - though I'm not worried about that for the moment as I've decided to go for a proof of concept approach in that I'm going to build my Colombe semi-replica with the most basic components, - but with the ability to upgrade things built in.

Sometime ago I purchased the beginnings of a homebuilt fun kart with a front axle attached to a lightweight chassis. Unfortunately the front axle has to go as once a vehicle has four wheels it's a car for licensing purposes and the notion of a bicycle based quadricycle is a totally foreign concept to those who administer New Zealand's vehicle regulations. Pity really because it did look nice when I put the trike axle on the rear of the chassis.
Once the front axle was cleanly removed and stashed away I surprised two Raleigh 20 frames with a hacksaw and made a long spined frame out of them. This lengthened frame will be installed down the centre of the fun kart chassis and will be joined to it by various bits of sawn up Raleigh 20 frame and pieces of angle iron. The engine will still be at the front. To start with the standard Raleigh 20 fork will be used, but various kinds of front suspension may get tried out later. I also want to mount the rear axle using quarter elliptic springs of the most simplest form and I have a pair of nice old car springs from the council tip already to donate some of their leaves to the project. These leaf springs are assembled from a great many thin leaves as was commonly done back when cars were properly built so they are perfect to provide the raw material I need.

Pictures will be posted once the storm has passed over and I can get my toys out of the garage again

 

[silverbear]

Once again "creative staring" and being willing to change horses mid stream has saved the day. It is so easy for the weight to creep upwards, for the budget to expand and for the build to become more and more complex. As you say, keep it simple and you can always upgrade later if need be.

As for the cyclone, batten down the hatches! And here's to hoping you don't end up like Dorothy being blown about and awakening in the land of Oz.
SB

 

[RicksRides]

sounds like swimming weather lol

 

[caduceus]

Good luck getting through the storm. Been there and done that sort of thing when I was stationed on Okinawa. For your Velocar replica I like the lighter/simpler concept if for no other reason than Pedaling your creation around when the prime mover quits is much easier. I'm looking at installing a windshield on my trike for riding in the coming winter months.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

The storm passed through relatively quickly, but according to the forecast another storm system is on its way. My daughter has some friends in the Met service that she went to university with so we often get to hear about unexpected changes in the weather for our region reasonably early.

While the storm travelled down the eastern coastline of New Zealand we didn't get the full brunt of it as there's a fairly sizeable range of hills between us and the coast which shelters us from these storms. It was still bad enough though which makes me wonder what it was like on the other side of the hills last night.
The river is riding high. but is staying within its banks so we didn't have any major problems with flooding around the township. The 1930's cottage where I live with my daughter is built on higher ground well above the usual flood level, but not so high up that we get hit hard by the storm winds when the weather turns bad.

Yes I'm pretty happy with my decision to apply the 'kiss' principle to my cyclecar project; - thanks for the positive comments guys. Maybe sometime in the future I'll build a more 'heavyweight' version, but for now I'm firmly sticking to bicycle parts only and all the ATV parts can go back into storeage.

 

[fasteddy]

Glad to hear that you made it through the storm OK. So often it's not so much the storm but the rain that comes with it that causes the problems.

I have one of the trike rear ends here in the garage that has had the axle cut into two pieces and a small section removed from the center so one side can be driven by the original bike chain and the other side by the engine chain. The original 5/8" axle is bent at the ends as if it had been used to jump off a ramp and they had bent up when it landed.
The wheels must have wobbled in and out something terribly every time they went around. I'll repair it and use it in an electric trike.

I'll make one out of 3/4" or 1" stock with high speed bearings and a heavy tube frame.
It may work out to use a Peerless rear end and have half the trike axle frame detach both from the trike itself and the other half of the axle frame so when it's removed the Peerless axle can be slid out and any repairs made and then side back into the half of the axle frame still attached to the bike and then the other half slid into place and it all bolted up to the trike and itself.

I'm a long way from doing it for myself but it is entirely possible that I know of an innocent victim who I can try it on this summer.

Steve.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Thanks Steve There didn't seem to be much damage around town, just lighter pieces of twigs, sticks and branches scattered about everywhere from the wind, but not much else. I don't think we got as much rain as was predicted even though it was pretty darn heavy all the same and definitely not the kind of weather anyone would want to be caught out in.

Today I didn't do much because my joints were sore. Yesterday was a busy day, but not a busy with bicycles day unfortunately, which is why I wasn't so well today. I have hopes for tomorrow though and I might even get to play with my welder.


I like your ideas for modifying your trike axle Steve. Once I've got this Colombe project mostly complete and working I may try something similar myself.

One of my hobbies is collecting bicycle numberplates and I've found the perfect one for the Colombe.

 

[fasteddy]

Sorry to hear about the sore joints. I can empathize all to well with how you feel. With our cold wet weather starting in, I hate to think how much longer before the tri car is finished.

I plan on trying to see if the trike rear end is workable early next year. The early trikes have always intrigued me and I think that it would be a perfect place for it to go. Load the trike with all the polished copper and brass that there is room for and blind the bystanders with shiny goodness on sunny days.

Why ride an ordinary bike when a extraordinary bike is just a little more effort away.

Hope you were able to get out into the garage and move parts around and survey their fitting. I like the license plate. It will be absolutely fitting for the Columbe indeed.

Steve.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Thanks Steve I think this last patch of wet and cold weather isn't helping at all with the level of background pain I'm having to cope with at the moment. Today was wet and stormy with heavy rain (again!), but nothing like as bad as when the tropical cyclone went through. I don't think I could handle your sort of Winter weather though which is definitely for those who are far more intrepid than I am.

I really like the sound of what you've got planned for your trike. The De Dion Bouton tricycles (and those of similar vintage) are amazing and would make great subjects for a tribute replica.

Despite everything I've been able to look around for parts in the garage and do some sorting. So far it looks like I can go a long way along with the Colombe project using what I already have to hand. Internal expanding brakes are something I want to use, especially on the front wheel and after some looking around I found a Chinese supplier on the Alibaba website who can supply suitable hubs and brake parts. I've been buying all kinds of things directly from China for a while now, most traders offer free shipping and so far everything I've ordered has arrived in a reasonably timely fashion.

The brakes look superficially similar to the Chinese band type brakes that were commonly used on Chinese bicycles and e-scooters that were imported into NZ a while ago by several local traders. When the recession bit many of these traders went to the wall and I was able to buy a few of the band brakes very cheaply at clearance sales. They aren't a particularly fabulous brake for stopping in a hurry, but they do make good parking brakes. The internal expanding brakes look to be a further development and improvement on the band brakes, so I'm reasonably hopeful that they'll do what I want them to. They are a 90mm brake in case anybody's wondering.

My Velosolex trike project that was stalled when I was ill is going to be absorbed into the Colombe project. A few of the parts I was going to use for the trike are now being used on the Colombe, so I thought I might as well go all the way and use the clone Velosolex engine on the Colombe as well. It's just sitting in its box so I might as well assemble it onto a set of forks and use it. If it doesn't work out I can change out the whole thing, motor, forks, wheel and all and attach it to a spare solo Raleigh 20 frame instead.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Today was a good day because I was able to get my grinder out of its box and make lots of sparks. Then I was able to wheel my big German made arc welder out of the garage and do some welding
I purchased the welder sometime ago from a semi-retired German engineer who had brought the welder with him when he emigrated to New Zealand and today was the very first time I've been able to use it. On maximum setting I could weld a battleship together if I wanted to. Strike an arc on that setting and the sun goes dim, but on the lowest setting it's just fine for welding bicycle tubing.

Oh it has been soooooooo long since I've been able to use my metalwork tools and make sparks! Having been ill for all that time was just plain rotten, but today made up for it. Easy does it though, I'm not going to madly rush at trying to build the whole darn cyclecar in a day. If I can see some progress each day no matter how small it might be I'll be happy.

Yes at this stage of things my project just looks like a semi-recumbent trike in the making, - and in a sense it is, - but once the additional metalwork to mount the body & etc begins to appear you'll see what I'm about.

 

[silverbear]

Coming along. I'm guessing the cats do not approve of the welding... or the grinding for that matter. So with the welder going full blast the sun dims, eh? That explains the lack of full sun yesterday here in our hemisphere. Dial it back a bit will you? Thanks.
SB

 

[Ratt_Bones]

It will be interesting to see how this looks when it's all finished. I have an idea for a trike, and want to build one.

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Coming along. I'm guessing the cats do not approve of the welding... or the grinding for that matter. So with the welder going full blast the sun dims, eh? That explains the lack of full sun yesterday here in our hemisphere. Dial it back a bit will you? Thanks.
SB

Yes the cats were a little annoyed with me for making noise and sparks instead of feeding them. And then when I do finally clear away all the noise and spark makers I interupt them by pointing cameras in their general direction.

I first heard a guy make that comment about striking an arc and the sun going dim back when I was doing the smallholder/earthmother thing and my children were small. I was walking past the local garage and a couple of the mechanics were debating the best way to do a welding repair on the garage's old ex-army 4x4 wrecker. One of them was just saying, 'Na you do it this way, - wind up the amps and when you strike an arc the sun goes dim,' as I went past and it's stuck in my memory ever since.

Thanks Ratt_Bones, I'm really interested to see how this project of mine turns out too.
I'm not the only one who has tried this it seems. I found this old photo a little while ago and I would say by the look of it that it's somebody's homebuild.