Finally A Progress Update

Things on the trike have been a little slow the last month or so because of the holidays and I’ve been doing a lot of planning. I’ve been trying to figure out how to fit three pedals (hydraulic clutch won’t fit on the shifter), steering column, heater ducts, instrument cluster, etc. in a very limited space in the cockpit. I also figured out that I needed to move the radiator to the front (won’t fit in back), but that probably makes plumbing the heater core a little easier. Finding a compatible heater core and a place & means to mount it took a bit of thought as well. Turns out the near perfect fit was one from a 1967 Ford Fairlane w/AC. It also took longer than I thought to find compatible headlight buckets (finally found some on Ebay). They’re mounted now too.

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Here's some pictures of the heater core mounted and the headlights.

Since taking these I've installed a small duct on the back of the heater core and a flapper to close off the heat from the cockpit. I haven't cut the hole to the cockpit yet, but it will be right in back of the heater core (below the core in the first picture).

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I took off a week from work and completed fabricating the radiator mounts, radiator fairing, and plumbing method. The radiator goes right about where the headlight are sitting which is in the scoop area in the upper left of the last picture. I constructed some plastic and fiberglass fairings to block off the sides of the radiator to prevent air by-pass flow.

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I had to figure out how to route the control linkage to raise and lower the flip-up headlights. As it turns out, there is less than an inch of clearance between the bottom of the heater core (the end with the inlets/outlets) and the upper part of the front axle. That made it impossible to use a single shaft as the linkage. I had to make a guide to guide the control shaft through this narrow openning and still need to put another link on the end. Pictures to come after I test fit the final assembly.

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The trick I haven't quite figured out yet is what the proper order of assembly is for the radiator, headlight, hose connections, connecting linkages, and placing the body on the frame. I think I'll probably have to do all but the hose connections near the motor and then lift the body on the frame in order to have room to get to everything, however that make the body even heavier, more difficult to place, and more likely to damage something like the radiator or a hose when placing the body over the frame. Right now, I think best is to suspend the body about a foot or so above the frame, connect everything and then lower the body.

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Luckily, I found brake and clutch pedals on E-bay for a fraction of the cost of new. I say luckily, since I only found one CNC-design of pedal assembly that would fit with the pedals a reasonable distance off the floor and without them being too tall or too close to the driver (they need to be fairly close to the front to have comfortable leg extension). I ordered the master cylinders and associated fittings and tubing to run the brakes and clutch. I'll say I think I ordered the right fittings - the alphabet soup of hydrualic fittings is enough to drive you nuts . . . -AN, flare, double flare, inverted flare, bubble flare, banjo, NPT . . . not to mention various sizes, threads, metric, and american for each. Thehydraulicsstore.com was a good source.

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So next is to cut the hole for air flow from the heater core, assemble the controls and linkages, and test fit to the frame. Then to work on fabricating the framework to mounting the pedals, dashboard and steering column, followed by a lot of electrical extensions and connections.