recumbent

When we moved to Vegas we bought a nice little home and I fell in love with having my own garage. This particular garage had been painted bright orange. We have recently sold that home but I have had more than one person suggest that I paint all my garages the same color. This was one of my first projects in the orange garage. I put this video on facebook sometime ago but I thought I would link it to the blog so here you go  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8e2KhgB5n8&feature=youtu.be

tandem and eliptical

The summer before I was married my buddy Josh told me that now was the time to make any last minute purchases while the money was still "my" money. Shortly after, I found a coupon for a welder and noticed some scrap steel lying around near my house. I took it as a sign and started teaching myself to weld, something I had wanted to do since I was little. Inspired by my cousin Mark, my first bike project was a tandem. Shortly after my wife was in California and saw an Elliptigo which she was excited about. I teased that we would get beat up riding that around Las Vegas, but I was half done building it by the time she got back. In Salt Lake City these bikes brought approving nods from policemen and big smiles from everybody on the sidewalk, in Las Vegas we mostly get weird stares...but were never beat up.  For some reason  these first projects never made the blog so here is a link to the original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbwa_YOLxwg

Lean Trike

Lean Trike

After putting the larger engine on the frankenbuggy I had the original smaller engine lying around the garage. Engines lying around the garage unused makes me start thinking of new projects. I eventually came up with a lean trike design.

The engine and torq-a-verter drive a live axle for the two wheels in back. The front wheel is connected directly to the seat. One hand has a twist grip throttle from a motorcycle and the other controls a disc break.The entire seat is hinged to the back section and to steer the rider leans his whole body into the turn.  The end result is a pretty bizarre riding experience. The first time Maria saw me ride it she instantly decided that it belonged in a parade...maybe if she drives.

Here is a video of the trike in action  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIqeUj5oxoo&feature=youtu.be

Frankenbuggy

My friend Topher had an old 1981 400cc Hondamatic stashed at his uncles house here in Vegas. It had been a few years since it was running and he was nice enough to just give it to me (...free dental work in the future). After cleaning out the carbs and replacing a few gaskets and diaphragms it was running good as new, but then on one of the first rides I noticed gas leaking out the sides of the tank. My mig welder would just blast holes in the tank so I asked a friend about using his tig welder but he thought it would be a waste of time because once you have one spot rusted through, it probably means you have 20 other rusted spots that are paper thin. Thinking outside the box I decided to use the angle grinder and laid into the gas tank with a heavy wire brush wheel, the end result being that all the fragile areas dimpled in. I punched in all the dimples and another friend let me use his oxyacetylene torch to help me braze all the holes until all the holes were filled, then I lined the inside with epoxy and haven't had any troubles since.

                                                   Interim gas tank...

 I love riding but always thought that it would just be a matter of time before I hurt myself if I ever owned a bike. The other issue was that we never got the title for it, so after a couple months of putting around the neighborhood it was time for the bike to come apart.

The plan was to mate the engine into the buggy. I ended up completely redoing the buggy frame, brakes, electrical, and seat mounts to make it fit. The part that ended up taking the most time was gearing it down. To save money I decided to use the old back wheel hub as a jack shaft so I could use its sprocket and bearings.

removing the hub from the tire

letting the hub free spin while cutting off the outer drum brake housing for a lathe-like cut

A friend was nice enough to let me use his lathe to machine the inner diameter of a sprocket for a perfect fit.

The new gear reduction gives it a more trail appropriate top speed and enough torque to get those back tires spinning.

The end result is the Frankenbuggy. Each bit of unpainted metal is a proud mark of its evolution. Since Mark gave it to me a couple years ago its esthetic value has been diminished one modification at a time. It may be a face that only its creator can love but with the new engine I have yet to find hill or dune that it won't tackle. 

Here is some video of the buggy finally stretching its legs out at apex   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1qtP3rKWlM