Trikes to consider for diesel transplants

[coachgeo]

http://www.rqriley.com/doran.html

http://www.rqriley.com/xr3.htm

http://www.blackjackzero.com/mainindex.htm

http://www.3wheelers.com/

http://www.pembleton.co.uk/


My favorite (copy of Morgan 3wheel)

NOT A KIT CAR -- http://cycle-car.com/

[coachgeo]

I must admit, I do like the old morgan style reverse trikes...

If you want something of that style, there is the Lomax kit car...

Based on the little old Citroen 2CV.......

for others benefit that find this via a search

http://www.sportsandleisurecars.co.uk/index_006.htm

[IgorVigor]

Just to add another idea on reverse trikes.

If you can find a diesel fwd car with a damaged rear end, you would/should have a good engine/gearbox, front brakes, steering assembly, suspension, etc already to use.

If you wanted an interesting vehicle, you could just cut the vehicle behind the front seats, weld a solid plate over the hole, so you have a small cab, and then weld a single rear wheel subframe onto the cab.
Voila!, a reverse trike

Might be what I end up doing with the van I have

[mr chips]

Just spotted this thread. It's possible to convert a front-wheel-drive car to a more traditional trike, i.e. two wheels at the back and one at the front. A friend of mine has done this with a Peugeot 306 - in simple terms (cos I'm a simple sort of person ) he chopped the back of the car off behind the engine, locked the steering, stuck a Honda bike frame on the front and brought a rod forward from the gearbox for a manual gearchange that's positioned identically to that of a car. Think this was possible because the engine was transverse-mounted and the gearbox at the side rather than directly behind.

Here's a photo - he put a pretty radical paint/fibreglass job on it! (NB sorry about the blanking out but I haven't asked him if I can put his face online so it's only fair.)



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[TimppaX]

that´s my next project - dieseltrike with "french touch" preferably with automatic gearbox.

Too bad our local laws are kind of a set of no-no´s to a self builder. Must have 50% or more from original bike and build is "easy".
But time will show.

[IgorVigor]

For the 50% original...its fairly easy I would have thought...

Get a big motorbike (Honda goldwing, moto guzzi, bmw etc)

modify the rear subframe (single seat mod)
instead of the swingarm, attach a frame containing the engine/gearbox/suspension from the fwd transverse engined car, to the back bolting to the back of the seat subframe and solid mountings to the swingarm fixings...

then you have the main frame, steering, fuel tank, etc from the original bike
must be more than 50%

you could then put the battery/electrics where the original engine was...
and perhaps a secondary fuel tank for SVO/WVO etc...

[TimppaX]

Yup. Must look after wrecked bikes. The older the better.
Or just make one with modern tech and register it as it was new.
These pollution regulations within Eu are drag.

Other way around is to modify factorymade trike to diesel (=easiest way but also most expensive)

[mr chips]

My trike is made from a chopped and lengthened Harley frame. Original parts include forks, bars, headstock (chopped & raked out), fuel tank and of course the frame itself which has been extended by a total of about 30cm. Would that count as 50%, or is that fact that it's missing the original engine, the swingarm and the rear wheel mean it would be considered as being less than half the original bike?

It's mated to a VW subframe and uses a Beetle gearbox. In terms of cost, I'll give you an idea of what my recent rebuild has cost me. The diesel engine (£150 from a breaker's yard) has been mounted with a custom flywheel that cost me £100 as well as a new mounting plate (£20) plus a small metal sleeve that cost pennies, to ensure that the spigot shaft was a good fit.

The biggest single cost item was the high-torque starter at £230 - with my previous diesel engine, its original starter was mounted to the Beetle gearbox via a slot cut out of the bellhousing, but when installing the bigger engine I couldn't use its own starter as it obstructed the bodyshell, so I had to go back to a starter that would fit in the original place on the bellhousing.

Another bigger cost item was the custom dual-core radiator at £210 - this needed to provide sufficient cooling for the engine (very important with those XUD engines that the cooling system doesn't go wrong or a cracked head will result) while being narrow enough to not block my feet/forward controls.

Getting the wiring done cost me £150 and the steel for the front end was £180. Stiffer coilover shocks (same ones as fitted to stock cars, to take the weight of the 150kg engine) were £160. The only other cost item that ran into three figures was the new front tyre at £100, although buying a second-hand bodyshell at £95 and then paying for seven hours of labour to restore it probably wasn't cost effective.

Those are the bigger items, but my total for parts and materials came to around £2000. I still have to get a custom stainless steel rear luggage rack. Oh and the seats will probably be around £250. Obviously I retained the subframe and rear wheels, plus I had a spare gearbox lying around - but even if you have to buy those, building a trike like mine shouldn't really cost much more than £3500 in parts and materials. Obviously a lot of things I did were my own choice and it's possible to reduce costs by e.g. sticking with the original bike seat, not changing the frame or headstock, etc. The flywheel of my previous engine (Peugeot TUD 1.5) was able to fit inside the Beetle bellhousing so that could be another cost-saving - I was still able to exceed 70mph with that one and it was reasonably quick through the gears. But if you're adapting a VW-based trike to take a diesel engine, the costs shouldn't be prohibitive - engine, adaptor plate, springs, starter shouldn't exceed £600 - after that, the only other costs might result from having to change a bodyshell as a pre-existing one may not fit around the diesel engine.

[TimppaX]

just looked after vehicles salvaged by insurance companies. Decent engine (=tested to be a running one) + gearbox is around 5000€

Whole car can be bought around 3000€ and rip engine + gearbox out of it and sell rest of it, maybe with some profit .

That´s french cars I´m talking about. Diesels. They are quite cheap here. Nobody seems to like them after first 200.000km on the clock.

[IgorVigor]

That seems expensive :S...

In the UK, you can get things like Peugeot 106 Diesels (1.5D) for less than £300 with ease...

[Nanko]

Same here , bought a spare TUD5 for the peuguzzi , 200€
Complete , running car costs ~ 750€

[IgorVigor]

I meant a complete car...

there was one on ebay the other week in Cornwall.

1994 I think, Peugeot 106 1.5D with minor damage...
owner had clipped a bollard and basically buckled the passengers side front wing in slightly, cracked the headlight, creased the bonnet and broke the actual bumpers mounting on that side (not the part on the car)..

and that went for £100 :O

the engine was a peach...

[mr chips]

Just occurred to me that I still have my 1.5 TUD - if anybody wants it for a project it's a known working engine. Only has something like 90-95k miles on it (can double-check this). Currently located just outside Antrim town, but will easily fit on a pallet or indeed in the boot of a car. Somewhere between £100-£150 or thereabouts will be fine, not too pushed - would rather see it go to an interesting project!

[Sphere]

Step right in Igor!

[IgorVigor]

As tempting as it would be, its a bit far from me

besides, I will use the Endura D I have

[coachgeo]

maybe you can buy one of these w/out engine/tranny?

http://www.thoroughbred-motorsports.com/

these come available as kit w/out engine/drivetrain

http://www.rayvolutioncars.com/default.php?page=kits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r9116Ksgxg&feature=fvw (check discription for purchansing plans)

http://www.criaforma.com.br/tb1/pgtb1.swf

http://www.peraves.ch/

http://www.bugev.net/

http://www.youtube.com/user/MadGeordie This fellows Youtube page has several series of different rev. Trike builds he has done. Follow them for ideas

http://modernmicrocars.co.uk/index.html They dont sell kits but the full bodies to put on your own chassis would work?

http://www.twike.com/english/home/home.html

http://www.bugev.net/BugE_Kit_Universe.html

[coachgeo]

http://www.zwheelz.com/ Elec. Rev. Trike but they might sell you a rolling frame??