My First Reverse Trike using a Burgman 650

[Liteway]

Feb 1, 2016 16:46:14 GMT -5 boozer said:

The mustang ll is the R&P I plan to use but I want to get all my arm geometry set up first and the off road rack is something that was siting on the self. After everything is working correctly I plan to get a mustang ll rack if it measures out correctly for the application i'm using. I do like that everyone is checking the small details like that but there are many other temporary things being use on this trike for now, but they will all be upgraded to the correct parts as I go along. Thanks again.

Thank you for posting the build and giving us something to look at and comment on.
Looking forward to seeing it progress.

[DaveJ98092]

Boozer, look at RockAuto for a Ford Pinto manual Rack, like $89 plus shipping, and no core charge.

A rack ratio of around 14:1 to 22:1 is OK but most "Sprint Car" racks are too fast at 9:1 and 12:1 and make for a "twitchie" steering on the road.
I think the Pinto is 18:1.

[boozer]

Thanks for that tip Davej.
Well I'm here today to say............I think I will finish this trike and sell it (without body work) because now that I have a few friends and family members asking me to build them one, I want to make that fabrication and bent tubing a little more simple to design and build a jig (fixture) around. So I'm posting a picture of what I came up with this morning when I was laying out my ideas on my computer. The lower picture is the same trike and same dimensions that I have been building for a few weeks now only with a little different shape and design on the rear half. After finishing that drawing I decided to try to shorten it up a little in the front so the top picture is what I came up with when adding my new rear section to the new shorter front section. So go ahead and let me know what you think.............................and don't hold back .................because I know you didn't plan to anyway.
One more note: I plan to base this these trikes around the Suzuki Burgman 650 scooters because they are automatic and that way my wife and adult children can have a little fun also but while I have been building and designing it I have tried to keep it universal in the rear because a friend and my brother both want me to build their trikes with motorcycle power plants and a fat rear wheel. So, now lead hear what you have to say.
I can't get the picture any more clear than that because it is a picture of my computer screen. sorry

[boozer]

Well for an update I actually drove my reverse trike Yeaterday (friday) around the backyard one time just to see if they would move under its own power. Now for the funny part I used a rear steer rack and pinion just to set up but I used it on the front so doing my test drive I had to remember to turn right if I want to go left and turn the steering wheel left if I want to go right and I also had to use my right hand to pull a pair of vice grips look to the throttle cable........... oh yeah and the last thing I had to use my feet to stop it because I have no brakes yet. Now for the serious update I actually got the mounts fabricated and I got the Suzuki Burgman 650 frame mounted into the Trike and I also got the lower rear section mounted to the rear midsection. And finally for this short weekend because of Super Bowl Sunday the last thing I got done was I ordered a Mustang II rack and pinion from RockAuto (thanks davej). I will update the pictures on Monday when I get to work and have my computer.

[DaveJ98092]

There is a video of a man that took his bicycle and put a gear in the gooseneck area just to see if people could ride it and no one can, except his younger son. Its one of those left brain /right brain things.

This trike kind of fits the T-rex replicla but you are not building them for sale yet. If you do, that is where it would need to go.

[boozer]

Well it is Monday and now for the picture updates. As I mentioned in my previous post I got the rear section of the trike finished and also got the Suzuki Burgman 650 frame mounted in the trike frame and these are a few pictures of that area.

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[boozer]

more pix

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[boozer]

sorry about the piece of tube laying on the ground...........it kind of throws off the pictures a little bit when looking at the shape of the frame.
PS when I say finished the rear of the frame, I'm only talking about the main tubing structure. There will be more support tubes added later.

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[boozer]

I have added a few .750 tubes to the rear section of my drawing to triangulate the main frame.

[DaveJ98092]

Boozer called me today and we talked about Car tires that fit his power combo of the Burgman 650. I have owned 4 Burgman 650's since 2006 and have put well over 150,000 miles on them. I have been running Car Tires (called Darkside) on them for over 110K miles of those 150K miles. So here are some tires that will fit without any modifications.

The stock tire is a 160/60 HR 14. It is 21.56" tall.
155/55 HR 14 and is much shorter than stock diameter, 20.71" tall.
155/60 HR 14 is just a bit shorter than stock, 21.36" tall.
155/65 HR 14 is much taller than stock and even the next tire 165/60 HR 14, 21.93" tall.
165/60 HR 14 is a little taller than stock diameter, 21.8" tall.
165/65 HR 14 is the tallest tire that will fit without modifying the swing arm pocket, 22.44" tall and adds some smoothness to the ride too.

Then there is 1 tire that I have currently on my non-running 2008 Burgman 650 and it is a 185/60 HR 14 and it will not fit the swingarm due to a lot of casting flash in the pocket of the swingarm and had to be cleaned out to fit this tall tire. It is 22.74" tall, 1.18" taller than stock.

None of these tires except the 185/60 HR 14 will make the speedo off to the side where you are speeding. The Burgman 650 is 10% wrong out of the factory so if you are doing 70 on the speedometer the bike s doing about 64 MPH true speed. The 165/65 HR 14 make the speedo read 70 when you are doing 69 MPH. The 185/60 HR 14 will have you doing 71-72 MPH when the speedo reads 70 MPH so use caution when speeding, do not do 10 over thinking you are safe.

Discount Tire has a tire comparison calculator here: TIRE CALCULATOR

[boozer]

Well I'm back with an update. Last week I received the Mustang II R&P and the new radiator (fits a 89-92 Suzuki Swift car). I chose this radiator because it is larger than the Burgman radiator that came on the scooter yet small enough to fit in the trike and the inlet/outlets are only 1/8" larger than the inlet and outlet on the engine. Well the radiator fit like a glove and all I need to do is add a 12" fan and weld up the mounts to the radiator. I also installed the R&P and it now the suspension and steering work great. (I know there may be some comments regarding the location of the R&P but this is the location that it needs to be in to get the least amount of tow in/out, caster, camber, anti dive, etc because of the way I mounted the front arm pivots straight to the chassis which has a 20 degree angle ). 

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[boozer]

pix

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[boozer]

I have not done any of the final welding because I'm still in the process of building (from scratch) my new cnc water table plasma cutting system that I need to use to make a lot of the specialty brackets. The reason for making it from scratch and not just buying a system off the internet is because I need to make it tilt sideways for storage reasons because as you might have noticed in the photos, my 6500 sq ft mancave shop located behind the house is starting to bust at the seems with all the projects going on. This is my hobby shop located in the back of the house and not my place of business. 

[boozer]

Now that I mentioned the mancave I started looking at the pictures and noticed some of you might think I'm a hoarder but I can assure you I'm not, I need and use almost everything you see all the time.  LOL

[extremetrikes]

Looking good. I built a similar project using a Honda 600 Silver Wing. It was completely automatic. My friend now has that motor and put it in his candy trike that he custom built two more look like a t-rex.

[kolibri]

Hi Boozer,

from my own experience I know what it means when you must change your suspension once again. So I hope to be not to late for you to think once again about your steering.

I think you did not solve the problem with the new r&P. In my opinion it es too short and you will have bump steer. Last year I bought a home made Buggy and had real problems to drive it over 60km/h I think 40miles/h. The R&P was to long but the problem is the same.

Look at this: www.hotrod.com/how-to/chassis-suspension/ctrp-1001-bump-steer-explained/

The second point is your r&p should be behind your steeringarms otherwise you will have wrong angels at the outer and inner wheels. That means the outer wheel will have a bigger angel than the inner.If you are going on racecar suspension it is possible to do it like this because they don't drive small circles but if you are on the road and you will get in a parking lot it is better for your tires when the inner wheel has the bigger angel. That is what Ackerman says. Haha.

We discussed this in Andrews building thread.

reversetrike.proboards.com/thread/336/spartan-trike-project?page=2

Andrew made a great job in this thread.

reversetrike.proboards.com/thread/343/vehicle-engineering-visualized


I asked him , (after we discussed it ) to show us what happends when the steering is in different positions and he did it very well.


Hey man you did a lot off things and they all look pretty cool. That means you know what you are doing.

So this should be just an idea.



Greetings Ralf

[joe]

Your trike looks great,I also have an auto trans.,my donor was a Honda 600cc 2004 Silverwing. I liked the Burgman but it was a bit long for my frame. I also devised a electric reverse that uses a winch motor,rubber roller, linkage that allows it to press on the rear tire and locks in place. I posted pictures of this on proboards, it worked better than I expected. Steering geometry can be tricky, you may want to google Ackerman angle and keep in mind that the upper & lower A arm pivots should be in line with your steering rack ball joints. Please check out my trike which is simular, its listed under "built projects", "T-Rex Carbon Fiber " Good luck!

[edvb]

boozer

You are doing a great job! You know your stuff ! It will be great to see it finished.

[edvb]

boozer

How is your build doing?

[DaveJ98092]

Moved last post to "For Sale" classifieds.