Harley Trike

T

tmihelick

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This is a trike project my dad and I built. It is a 90 sportster 883. The rear end came off a late 70's chevette. We gutted it and cut it down. I designed the 4 link suspension and the hub that holds the Axels together. Luckily the chain size is identical to a machine size. And I got the rear sprocket from an industrial supplier I used a giant custom made key to hold everything together. The rear brakes are stock chevette parts with custom lines to the original Harley master cylinder. They work great together. That seems to be the part that amazes most people at local bike nights. I also have a few words of warning if someone wants to try this themselves I will post in detail. A little later. I had a few close calls that could have ended me, if I wasn't so lucky

trike 1.jpg trike 2.jpg trike 3.JPG trike 4.jpg
 
That's pretty cool! I had a Honda ATC three-wheeler in the '80s, and I'm pretty sure I could guess what sorts of issues you are alluding to. Be careful.
 
Well what your thinking hasn't been too bad because the wheel base is longer Than an ATC. I know a lot of people that got hurt pretty bad on those. The warnings I have involve strength of materials. The first mistake was that my key was too lose and the bolts that hold the Axel in were only a grade 5. BC that's all home depot had in stock and it was Sunday. I wasn't waiting to take a test drive. Literally a 1/4mile from my house a bolt sheared and made a loud ping. I looked over and the Axel was slowly sliding out. I panicked and stood on the rear brakes. Luckily it locked up and the shoes held the drum. I learned I wasn't invincible and not to cut corners especially on a bike

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Since then I made a tighter fitting key. And wobbled out the holes and I've put a countless number of miles on it since and had no problems with the rear end I also ran into another issue. The suspension design If you look the shocks are stock in one picture then bigger aluminum ones in the next. The real issue lies with how they are cantilevered out in 2 directions. If you imagine the shock upright. This put it in a condition where the force on that little weld at the bottom was trying to shear it sideways. On your average motorcycle the shocks are mostly vertical so they don't see this kind of stress. In the end it snapped off. And I made a very abrupt left turn. Right into a ditch and got ejected. I barely had time to grab the brakes.

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At the time I didn't know any better. I was in collage and supposedly an engineering student, but they force you into "general studies". Like English, history, general math. i took my first engineering course at the end of my soft more year now I kinda look back and think wow I really did that

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