Cycle project

[Greenpeace]

I'm just embarking on a delta tricycle project.
SWMABO had decided "no more cars or motorbikes" because apparently 18 are too many.
Anyway rules are meant to be interpreted literally so I bought a tricycle.
It's a Peugeot frame () with one of those bolt on 24" wheel trike conversions. It had been bastardised quite a bit with MTB forks (running a 29" rim) that had a large diameter stem running in the small diameter steering head with no bearings or bushes whatsoever.
It had a tractor seat mounted low between the back wheels (almost horizontal to the pedals) and a set of home bent apehangers..
The big Maori guy I got it off said "it's bit hard to pedal bro and it turns left when you take off". He was about 4" taller than me and my legs were still half bent at the bottom of the pedal throw.
Anyhoo I bought a nearly new, good quality 24" girl's bike off Gumtree for $40 to use for parts.
I've so far used the tyres, front caliper, seat and seat post, handlebar stem and handlebars, brake levers and cables, cut the steering head stem off both forks and machined the smaller diameter girl's one to fit into the alloy MTB forks. The cups, races and bearings out of the girl's bike fitted the trike frame.
The trike has a back pedal brake, single speed centre mounted hub with a short chain from it to the back axle. The girl's bike has a 6 speed Shimano hub so I'm debating whether to fit that in place of the current centre hub.
Only down side will be I will lose the current rear brake so would have to fit a disc or some such to the back.
The 24" tyres are an off white so I'm waiting for an off white Schwalbe Fat Frank 29x2 tyre I've ordered to show up. The current tyre is bald as a badger anyway.
Once the front tyre is fitted the trike will be safe and rideable, then it will be time for stage 2.

I'm a little undecided on what style of engine/motor to add. You can buy complete 80cc 2 stroke kits from $170 delivered.
I've found a 1.8KW 48V chain drive, brushless motor, EV conversion kit for $575 delivered, that includes the deep cycle batteries.
I'm also half thinking about steam. Does anyone know of a compact, off the shelf steam engine in the 2 to 5 hp range?
Of course all of these are illegal in QLD but there's plenty of deserted back roads where I live, so.
The appeal of the electric conversion would be that I could hide everything in a "carry box" between the back wheels. The 2 stroke would be in plain view and obviously a steam engine would be a little hard to hide as well.

I would like to go a route I haven't tried before, in spite of the cost appeal of the 2 stroke I've already owned dozens of 2 stroke motorcycles over the years.
Anyone have experience with the EV kits or compact steam??

 

[dimistyle]

Only on the ebikes have I had to work on and most have a Chinese rear electric hub and remote battery fitted to bottle holder or inside the frame.

Anyway the hubs go west so a complete new rear wheel with hub is the way to go.

Never done anything more than that and most can go 60 - 70 km/hr and sold in QLD so not sure of the current regulations.

Fun project

 

[Greenpeace]

Only on the ebikes have I had to work on and most have a Chinese rear electric hub and remote battery fitted to bottle holder or inside the frame.

Anyway the hubs go west so a complete new rear wheel with hub is the way to go.

Never done anything more than that and most can go 60 - 70 km/hr and sold in QLD so not sure of the current regulations.

Fun project

Yes the EV kit I'm looking at is a chassis mount motor with chain drive. Qld law on electric bikes is 250W max and the motor must be activated by the rotation of the pedals (no twist grip throttle).
Anything over 250W or any IC engine is classed as a motorcycle and must meet the relevant ADRs.

However as you rightly said, there is no end of more powerful Ebikes running around (and scooters), so there is no law against selling them, just against riding them.

There is no specific mention in QLD legislation of external combustion engines being fitted to bicycles however.
Could end up being a landmark case in court if I went the steam route.

route

 

[Bowie]

What about those in hub engines some elec mopeds etc are using, Wire up x3 of them to cheat and go faster

Heaps of kids around here seem to be swapping out there bike wheels for these elec hub engins to terrorise the oldies walking the poodles.

Looks like fun

 

[Greenpeace]

What about those in hub engines some elec mopeds etc are using, Wire up x3 of them to cheat and go faster

Heaps of kids around here seem to be swapping out there bike wheels for these elec hub engins to terrorise the oldies walking the poodles.

Looks like fun

I'm after around 50 to 60kph top.speed and a range of 40kms. I need at least 2 KW to achieve this speed. The 40 km range would need a significant amount of battery storage depending on the voltage of the system. I'm not overly knowledgeable when it comes to Ebikes but I'm thinking I would need at least 20AH of storage to achieve this range. Two 1KW hub motor kits and 20AH of lithium batteries wouldn't leave much change out of $2K.
Although the $ side isn't really an issue you can buy a ready made 3 wheel bike for around $3 anyway. I was hoping to limit my total spend to under $1K.
The appeal of the $170 2 stroke kit is hard to ignore; an 80cc one would give me the speed I'm after, and the 40km range would require 1L of petrol.

 

[schlitzaugen]

You know you can make a brushless motor by rewiring the motor in a washing machine, right? It is a bit involved and you're going to end up with a motor a little bit big for what it does but it can be done. See youtube.

R/C batteries are at 10Ah @ 7.4V already. You need two of those and they can deliver high currents too. Not sure about these in the link below, but they have 10Ah at 12V and much cheaper than the RC batteries:

Solarking 10Ah 12V Lithium Iron Battery LiFePo4 CB-10-12-5

Solarking 10Ah Lithium Iron LiFePo4 Battery with Advanced BMS

trailercamperaustralia.com.au

All in all not that hard to do, but I would be concerned with stability at 60km/h. A bicycle is easy to balance even at high speeds, but a tricycle has a different behaviour.

 

[Greenpeace]

You know you can make a brushless motor by rewiring the motor in a washing machine, right? It is a bit involved and you're going to end up with a motor a little bit big for what it does but it can be done. See youtube.

R/C batteries are at 10Ah @ 7.4V already. You need two of those and they can deliver high currents too. Not sure about these in the link below, but they have 10Ah at 12V and much cheaper than the RC batteries:

Solarking 10Ah 12V Lithium Iron Battery LiFePo4 CB-10-12-5

Solarking 10Ah Lithium Iron LiFePo4 Battery with Advanced BMS

trailercamperaustralia.com.au

All in all not that hard to do, but I would be concerned with stability at 60km/h. A bicycle is easy to balance even at high speeds, but a tricycle has a different behaviour.

Yes, 48V seems to be the minimum for decent performance on a bicycle, (with many Ebikes going as high as 72V) Even at 48V I would need 8 of the batteries in the link for 20AH ($592).
The complete 48V kit I found for $575 comes with four 12V x 12A batteries and another 4 cost $260, to give 24AH @ 48V combined, so $835 total.

I have an old factory Harley Servicer trike which I've owned for 16 years. These are basically a WLA solo bike with a chain drive diff in the back. It will cruise at 100kph with one light hand on the bars. Tight corners require a bit of wrestling through the bars though. Main concern with a tricycle will be in corners due to the centre of gravity of the bike and rider being higher that that of the COG of the same rider on heavier machine like the Harley.
Although my 3 wheel Reliant will lift a back wheel in a corner a lot easier than the Harley will (the Harley is almost impossible), I believe this occurs due to the difference in the rear track to wheelbase ratio rather than from a higher COG.

A mate of mine has an interesting vintage Japanese ladie's tricycle where the front half leans into corners like a regular bicycle. It has light springs that keep it upright when parked and I think you can lock out the tilt function to make it like a "regular" trike as well.

I still like the idea of steam and testing the grey area in QLD's bicycle laws.

 

[pugwash]

have you considered running a steam engine on compressed air, have an LPG cylinder on wheels towed on the back pumped up to a high but acceptable pressure. dont know what kind of range you could expect ,but you could always call in to your local servo to have it pumped up

 

[COL]

have you considered running a steam engine on compressed air, have an LPG cylinder on wheels towed on the back pumped up to a high but acceptable pressure. dont know what kind of range you could expect ,but you could always call in to your local servo to have it pumped up

and for free

 

[Greenpeace]

have you considered running a steam engine on compressed air, have an LPG cylinder on wheels towed on the back pumped up to a high but acceptable pressure. dont know what kind of range you could expect ,but you could always call in to your local servo to have it pumped up

Yes I've been Googling compressed air engines too. There's an Australian engineer Angelo Di Pietro that makes some impressive efficiency claims for his pneumatic motor design.
The guy in the attached photo's name is Cory Little. The bike pictured operates on 130 psi. There are no claims made on performance or range but the article indicates he is working on a 4500psi carbon fibre bicycle tank, so that in itself probably indicates " not far and not fast on 130psi".

 

[shibuichi]

You should definitely pursue the steam option.
Why would you go for speed over barbecue functionality?

(With thanks to @59 Floride (sold) )

 

[Greenpeace]

Speaking of legality issues. I did come across a guy in the US who lives in one of the less liberal states that don't permit IC powered bicycles.
He built an IC powered trailer that pushes his bike and the police couldn't fine him as there are no laws against powered trailers in his state.

 

[Greenpeace]

and for free

You could carry a hand pump if you were really desperate.
"Just gassing er up".

 

[Greenpeace]

You should definitely pursue the steam option.
Why would you go for speed over barbecue functionality?

(With thanks to @59 Floride (sold) )

I've seen a couple of videos on this guy. Although it doesn't look it, he says it does 50kph.

 

[pugwash]

I had considered using a air powered rattle gun mounted in front of the rear wheel driving via chain a large sprocket on the left pedal,leaving you all your gears on the right ,you would have to devise some valve system to vary pressure delivery ,and a bonus would be if the tank was painted black the sun on it would increase the pressure so it could almost classify as solar powered ,qualifying,for some kind of government grant positively ,and with global worming it's performance could only increase over time .a win win situation!

 

[Greenpeace]

Mmm these cartridges are prefilled to 850psi. All I'd need is to make a manifold to accept a few hundred of these and plan my routes past the local Gelblaster shop.

 

[Greenpeace]

I had considered using a air powered rattle gun mounted in front of the rear wheel driving via chain a large sprocket on the left pedal,leaving you all your gears on the right ,you would have to devise some valve system to vary pressure delivery ,

Couldn't you just reach down and squeeze the rattle gun trigger just enough to deliver the amount of air required?
The body posture necessary do this would also offer some aerodynamic benefits as well.
You could end up in line for both wind and solar subsidies.

 

[Greenpeace]

Well I'm starting to lean strongly towards fossil fuel. I've found a 50cc 4 stroke kit for $190 that comes with throttle, throttle cable, chain, sprockets etc. It's a copy of the Honda GX50 engine, only 2hp, but quite compact and I would do a hidden mount between the back wheels in a suitably ventilated cargo box. Engine weighs 4kg. I've found a few videos of bicycles fitted with them and most seem to have a top speed in the 50 to 60 kph range. One guy in the US did a 40 mile trip then fueled up and it took 1/4 of a US gallon to fill. Works out around 70km per litre.

 

[Kim Luck]

Well I'm starting to lean strongly towards fossil fuel. I've found a 50cc 4 stroke kit for $190 that comes with throttle, throttle cable, chain, sprockets etc. It's a copy of the Honda GX50 engine, only 2hp, but quite compact and I would do a hidden mount between the back wheels in a suitably ventilated cargo box. Engine weighs 4kg. I've found a few videos of bicycles fitted with them and most seem to have a top speed in the 50 to 60 kph range. One guy in the US did a 40 mile trip then fueled up and it took 1/4 of a US gallon to fill. Works out around 70km per litre.

Best of luck with registration and insurance, the authorities, riding on public roads, lawsuits, etc, etc........

 

[Greenpeace]

Best of luck with registration and insurance, the authorities, riding on public roads, lawsuits, etc, etc........

Mmm, I don't have too many things that are 100% legit, one more won't hurt.
I don't plan on riding it down Queen St Mall, so I should be OK.
I'll put some playing cards in the spokes to hide the engine noise and tell the cops I'm a fast pedaler.