tshtrikes.com

2 Responses to

1. TomA
   July 5th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   Hey guys:

   Cool work.

   It looks like you’ve swapped the front suspensions left for right to make them front steer (steering rack and linkage ahead of the axle) rather than rear steer.

   I think you’re going to to have to reverse the caster angle built into the spindle/arms set-up to make this work. If you don’t, you are inviting some pretty squirrely if not outright unstable handling, because you’ll have negative trail.

   Also, the Ackerman angle needs to be corrected. The steering arms on the spindles have to be angled outboard in front steer configuration, putting them deep within the wheel. This is a much less serious problem than the caster angle, but you are going to be steering the outside wheel to a tighter radius than the inside wheel with this setup, and that will cause the tires to scrub.

   I’m not saying it won’t work as you have it, but you can’t just swap the suspension sides without making changes to correct the geometry. Very likely you know this and are thinking it through, but I thought I would mention it just in case.

2. paulwelkins
   August 3rd, 2009 at 9:27 pm

   Hello,
   Love your tenacity, although I’m worried you may be running into the same issues I had while building a VERY similar trike. I have pics and also cover the issues on my blog:

   http://www.highmileagetrikes.blogspot.com

   The other fellow commenting is right, you will have major caster issues if you don’t reverse the A-arms putting them back in the original configuration.
   My BIGGEST problem on my first road test was the steering set-up was waaay too twitchy, this is because the wheel turning arms are way too short on an ATV. Any sudden movement and I was off the road. I had the VERY same set-up as you’ll see, and I even tried 2 times using different sized sprockets and #40 chain to get some gearing reduction going on. It was still too twitchy, and my wheel base looks about the same as yours too. I ended up using a vw bug front end due to my states F-up laws (washington) that forbids any off road parts on a road vehicle. Check your states laws out too! Anyway, In a way I’m glad that happened. Although I had to shortening the steering arm comming off the steering box (not recommended) to get some play in the steering, the larger wheels and better brakes were nice, except it gained way too much weight for my little honda cb 350.
   I don’t know what to tell you, except don’t get discouraged. Keep up the great work man. Contact me if you have any burming questions.
   360-629-0286
   Paul