My life with Python trikes Mk1 , Mk1.5 , Mk2 ?

[stormbird]

well this is what they may look like when welded.

This uses a special spacer made by ' lathe boy ' DannyC to try and stop the whole lot wobbling on a pyramid of washers ?

I have added 2 washers under the M6 anti rotation bolt to give me some wiggle room after it has been welded.

The other bracket will have to be ground off as it will interfere with the tail box/faring when built.

Not welded till DannyC & Popshot have cast their jaundiced eye over it

Paul

 

[stormbird]

As it is in pieces it is a good oppertunity to weigh the several parts , I mused with DannyC about a project to reduce each parts weight by 10% it may be worthwhile ....

Well it was till the full horror of what I found has been digested and conteplated ?

front​	11.6 kg​
seat + upper mounts​	2.9 kg​
back + seat subframe​	8.9 kg​
rack + tools + some clothes​	10.2 kg​	Yikes !!! frame + panniers only 4.1 kg
total​	33.6 kg​	27.5 kg with empty panniers​

​

Looking just @ the tools could achive considerable saving , and I dragged this weight around Holland !
Dumb or what

Paul

 

[Popshot]

Looks good Paul. Every kilo you save will be worthwhile. Over building is the easiest thing to do. Using the minimum is much harder.

 

[DannyC]

well this is what they may look like when welded.

This uses a special spacer made by ' lathe boy ' DannyC to try and stop the whole lot wobbling on a pyramid of washers ?

I have added 2 washers under the M6 anti rotation bolt to give me some wiggle room after it has been welded.

The other bracket will have to be ground off as it will interfere with the tail box/faring when built.

Not welded till DannyC & Popshot have cast their jaundiced eye over it

Paul

Paul,

That looks better, but I can't see if there is a clear "cable-path" from the adjuster mounting slots to the actuator arm. This is what I get on my trike and I have none of the issues you seem to have.
How the backplate gets oriented affects whether your cable adjuster is a funnel capturing water and dumping it into the cable outer or a downward-pointing self-draining tube, of course.
I hope the new stand-off spacers do the trick for you mate!

 

[stormbird]

Cable will be horizontal , however the little hole will be point towards the back instead of the front ?

It can't be pointing down otherwise it would interfere with the fairing I don't have

Maybe that will help.

Paul

 

[stormbird]

So finally re-assembled and working.

New bracket on left and 2 washers as insurance against getting it in the wrong place , had a great deal of trouble getting the back plates fitted at first.

Problem 1
I clamped the lower frame to the workmate and picked up a back plate only to find it would not fit , no problem I must have the one for the other side so I picked up the other one and that did not fit either ?

Wife came with a cup of tea and I said neither of these fit yet they were fitted and clamped up 2 days ago ! on putting them side by side they appear NOT to be a mirror of each other but 2 of the same ? am I going mad ? [ perhaps don't answer that ]
Wife spotted the writing wasn't the same on each one , then the penny dropped I had taken the brake operating arm of to see if I could get some oil into it and must have put it on the wrong way around DOH I removed it and changed it's orientation and it then looked like a mirror whew , fitted it and the other side and added the front and dropped it onto the floor for cabling.

Problem 2
When i came to cable it up I found out I had got the crutch for the cable end pointing towards the cable not away from it another struggle to swap it over without complete disassembly as you can see from the above picture there is no clearance to get the nut out as I had left the old bracket on till I proved I could get these working [ needed it Monday ]

So a one hour job took all Sunday afternoon however they are done now.
You can see from this shot that the parts have been rusting and that was with them above the axle.

The brake cables need bedding in a little and they don't feel the same left and right however they both work well and were oiled lever/adjuster when installed and will get oiled again when it is time to remove the old brackets.

Riding a revelation despite the tools weight it goes like a little rocket and now actually freewheels on the garage floor , I had forgot it used to do that !

Paul

 

[stormbird]

So got an hour to perform a bracketectomy ?

This required extreme concentration as I need to make sure I removed the ' right ' bracket , the right in the picture also on this side.

Cleaned up enough to allow a plywood floor to sit flush on the top of the dead axle and also up against it's rear face.

Re-assembly requires a tube to represent the wheel hub 2 M12 washers and a normal nut , these replace the wheel thus allowing access to bolt up the non-rotation bracket [ the black bit ] , this assembly is hand tightened and then the M6 bolt and washer are assembled and nipped up just tight.
The M12 bolt is tightened with a spanner and the M6 ditto , if this has gone well the wheel is mounted and tightened up till it will just swing in the opposite direction to the one it was set off in EVEN if there is some lateral play in the wheel detectable at the rim.

As DannyC found to his cost these back plates do not always go back in the same place they came from , no matter how careful you think you are

Next up the rack needs to be made easier to remove ? welding the bolts on to it will help as I will only need one spanner then and maybe ditch the triangulation bar.
Couple of 1/5 scale models are being built looking for a pleasing shape plenty of volume and as few pieces as possible , once one is chosen a full size cardboard fairing will be made.

On-wards and every backwards I say.....

Paul

 

[DannyC]

As DannyC found to his cost these back plates do not always go back in the same place they came from

...no idea what you mean...everything is absolutely perfect here.....HONEST IT IS!

 

[stormbird]

...no idea what you mean...everything is absolutely perfect here.....HONEST IT IS!

.. and did you measure your nose before and after you posted that ?

Paul

 

[stormbird]

Look what I found spread amongst my 3 bike sheds !

What is left of Python Mk1.5 [ non tilting ]

Now there were 2 reasons to re-assemble this :-

a) I had hoped to lend it to Dale Rider and tempt him onto the Darkside before he finished his Warrior and Streetfox.....

Dale Rider and DannyC's parents were given a choice ' nice face ' or 'man sized inside leg measurement' ! guess which they chose
So whilst I can ride this with inside leg 32" the seat would have to move forward 4" for either of them to have a chance , that would put the front of the seat touching the tyre !
Oddly Tilt#6 I can move the seat that far forward.

Low isn't it !

b) I wanted to try non tilting again it has been 17 months since I rode it [ WOW ] to see if I could make my mind up if tilting is good , maybe it will hang together long enough to get to mothers and back ? it is VERY tired and needs a complete overhaul really.

Watch this space ...

Paul

 

[stormbird]

Well there is something strange in the woodshed ?

Look above the red arrow near the word tyre there is paint missing from the main frame just below the seat rear stays , also missing from the other side.
DannyC speculated that the elastomers may be supplying some element of suspension , maybe they are and the seat stays lower enough when riding to rub the paint ?

Before the faring is started the rear seat stays are to be welded on to the left where the red line is near the rear elastomer then they can be trimmed to length so should clear the main frame ?

Paul

 

[Emiel]

Yes they work also as dempener. The metal is to close to the frame, so it will hit it and damage your paint.

 

[stormbird]

So the Python and I went a racing !
Not not me silly we were just watching.

I did a lap of the track before the racing started about a 2.14 km loop which seems to take an age compared to a velodrome.
Only a couple of home built bikes racing and a hand full of velomobiles , they lumped them all in the same race.

So this is the start/finish line.
Far left control tent with laptop etc
Big black box has a timer on it for how long the race has been running with a large digit display to be seen by the riders
The white boxes each side of the track are the sensors for the timing system
Each bike carries a tag to identify itself to the timing system

This race is a 2 hr + 1 lap
In the frame is the grey velomobile maybe a Alpha 7 ? [ bit rusty on velomobile spotting , there seems to be a new model each year ! ] the white 2 wheeler is a home build and the large turquoise blob is a QV and an equally blobby sized pilot which wafted sedately around the track at a speed I could have followed for maybe a lap it was soooooo slow .

This is a mixed bunch 2 hand cycles seem to be doing most of the work followed by a partially fair Baron 2 wheeler the 2 high racers and catching up fast is Lee's Snoek

Hugh variety of bikes at the 2 day meeting and they seemed to be having loads of fun.

Slasher Slade riding a Beano homemade 2 wheeler streamliner similar to the cream one in the top picture.
Time 2.02:28 so he did a 2 hr race and the +1 lap took 2:28 minutes his fastest lap , his starting lap was the slowest @ 3:12 always 2:5? per lap despite all the traffic he had to contend with.

The QV above was 19 laps behind 15.36 mph at the finish a lady on an unfaired ICE trike beat the QV !
The slowest finisher being a hand powered trike @ 27 laps behind 9.72 mph

Average speed was 28.73 mph

Paul

 

[stormbird]

Ok a bit of trike fettling ?

I need to shorten the seat sub-frame @ the back to stop it fouling the fairing , that meant welding the rear seat stays to it rather then them being bolted [ weight saving as well -smart eh ! ]

So they looked this after the job was done and the surplus hacked off. Hope the holes aren't going to cause any problems ?

Don't remember taking pictures of the main frame like this before looks most odd.

This is what I achieved , the floor of the fairing will come over the rack mount almost up to the Manx tail.
The paint was being rub off by the previous rear seat stays in their rear most position , not any more laddie !

I will do the front seat mounts at a later date to remove the ugly hardware and all those bolts/weight they can be replaced by a pair of ugly brackets and suspect welds
The front of the seat sub-frame can then be cropped as well

Paul

 

[DannyC]

So the Python and I went a racing !
Not not me silly we were just watching.

I did a lap of the track before the racing started about a 2.14 km loop which seems to take an age compared to a velodrome.
Only a couple of home built bikes racing and a hand full of velomobiles , they lumped them all in the same race.

So this is the start/finish line.
Far left control tent with laptop etc
Big black box has a timer on it for how long the race has been running with a large digit display to be seen by the riders
The white boxes each side of the track are the sensors for the timing system
Each bike carries a tag to identify itself to the timing system

This race is a 2 hr + 1 lap
In the frame is the grey velomobile maybe a Alpha 7 ? [ bit rusty on velomobile spotting , there seems to be a new model each year ! ] the white 2 wheeler is a home build and the large turquoise blob is a QV and an equally blobby sized pilot which wafted sedately around the track at a speed I could have followed for maybe a lap it was soooooo slow .

This is a mixed bunch 2 hand cycles seem to be doing most of the work followed by a partially fair Baron 2 wheeler the 2 high racers and catching up fast is Lee's Snoek

Hugh variety of bikes at the 2 day meeting and they seemed to be having loads of fun.

Slasher Slade riding a Beano homemade 2 wheeler streamliner similar to the cream one in the top picture.
Time 2.02:28 so he did a 2 hr race and the +1 lap took 2:28 minutes his fastest lap , his starting lap was the slowest @ 3:12 always 2:5? per lap despite all the traffic he had to contend with.

The QV above was 19 laps behind 15.36 mph at the finish a lady on an unfaired ICE trike beat the QV !
The slowest finisher being a hand powered trike @ 27 laps behind 9.72 mph

Average speed was 28.73 mph

Paul

That Steve Slade is a demon. Look how he overtakes and keeps lapping everybody!
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/Data/Sites/1/media/events/events22/09darley_moor/2022-08-29-Darley-Moor-2-R2-2hr-r2-.html?raceCat=Faired Multitrack (Open)

 

[stormbird]

So nothing is getting done , however i urgently need mudguards so .....

Having now build 3 1/5 scale models it is time to build a full size cardboard one to see if it will work , surprisingly the lengths are only out an 1" or 1.5" from the model so chuffed with that.
This shows a over long bottom piece with 2 sides and the sloping piece that goes behind the seat.

I screwed a piece of wood to the back of the seat rails to act as a spacer as I suspect the seat moves backwards when I get in it and when the suspension is activated , is it enough ?
I shall have to ride with it on and find out eventually.
At the bottom where the fairing sits above the frame you can see plenty of clearance [ I hope ] where I chopped off the seat subframe.

It now looks big however i am sure it will be unseen when I am sat on the seat , picture will be taken later to see.

Sorry for the messy picture the box had graphics on it so there is a line at the top where the rear wheels are and a lower one showing the edge of the current sides.
The rest of the rear was to have 2 angles pieces [ the 60' drawn in the lower corners ] and a vertical piece joining the angled , however i have had another though so need to make another model to try that out.

Nothing lost as the next job it to join these 4 pieces together and throw some stuff in to see how big it really is

Paul

 

[stormbird]

Hi all

So after successfully find the box of glue sticks we are off......

The floor , front and both sides glued together using the same process as the 1/5 scale model except using contact adhesive and hot glue stick seems very strong hmmmm

Back part is is made of 1 piece with 2 creases , it sort of fits this part is much harder to do in real life than cereal box model ! however it is ready for gluing

As I suspected the fairing is completely hidden in the shadow of my body ! so don't look terribly bulky.

The piece of card visible behind my left shoulder is trying to figure out how high I can make the lid and still have it hidden behind my shoulders ?

The mudguard will fit a little like this , however more stylish.

So if I papered this inside and out with lining paper glued on with polyurethane varnish and then it was painted with a outdoor paint would it :-
a) fall apart before the spring
b) last one winter
c) last than one winter longer

maybe I should find out ?

Paul

 

[Popshot]

I suspect A. One thought though - I see it can take the load of a tool box but that is spread across the frame. What if there was a loading more to one side such as an uneven shape not crossing the frame. Would that floor hold? If it will and it's much easier to do than what you were going to then it's possibly worth a try. If it's nearly as much effort then it's probably not. Will you transfer the lights to the back of the box or leave them there? I too like croc type footwear. They make excellent slippers you can go outside in without them falling apart.
Point of pedancy though - that's your right shoulder!

 

[stormbird]

I suspect A. One thought though - I see it can take the load of a tool box but that is spread across the frame. What if there was a loading more to one side such as an uneven shape not crossing the frame. Would that floor hold? If it will and it's much easier to do than what you were going to then it's possibly worth a try.

There will be a subframe out from the axle to the rear of the box ,if I chose to try cardboard for a year I could easily add a plywood subfloor between the 2 ?

Will you transfer the lights to the back of the box or leave them there?

I will have to move them as the top will be the same height as they are [ or higher ]

I too like croc type footwear. They make excellent slippers you can go outside in without them falling apart.

You know what they say about croc's ?
The holes are for your dignity to leak out off Am I bothered .........

Point of pedancy though - that's your right shoulder!

As Einstein say's depends upon your view point ?
In the picture it is my left shoulder.

How's your testing going ?

Paul

 

[Popshot]

Non existent at the moment. Spent the day glazing the quad. Plenty of glazing work still to do after today too. May try a run to work on the tilter. It was on such a run it spat me off so it will be a good test.