We both took a week vacation. The plan was to finish up the trike early in the week and take it somewhere, probably Arkansas, for the rest of the week.
Well, we kind of combined these two goals. We worked on the trike almost all week, realized we still weren't going to finish in time and went to Arkansas anyway.
When last I updated the blog, There was painting left to do. Suffice it to say that everything that was intended to be green (and a couple things that weren't) indeed became green, then became prismatic midcoated and clear top coated. All in all, we used four cans of green, 1 full can (an old half and a new half) of prism sparkly glitter stuff and two full cans of gloss clear.
Reassembly was a daunting task. I tried to avoid fixing everything as I reassembled it, especially wiring since I plan to rewire it anyway, but it's not easy to put something you don't like back in place when you have the skills and/or materials to upgrade it.
One place where I did not avoid repairing something was the fan/generator belt and pulley. After I discovered that the crankshaft pulley is welded on, I tried to replace the generator pulley to dress it up, but also to tighten up the very loose belt.
The generator pulley bent as easily as the crank pulley and also did not give. I had straightened it as best I could for the short term, but I knew it couldn't stay that way. PB Blaster, pulley puller and an appropriately sized socket for hammering the pulley back on (and perseverance), as well as purchasing the right sized belt, paid off.
Since the fuel pump was moving anyway, I added a bigger filter, a cut off valve (the one on the tank doesn't appear to work) and a fuel pressure gauge.
Of course, it did little to help us that heavy rains came while we were trying to get the thing finished up Thursday evening.
It was shortly after the rains had subsided that we had gotten a bit more done that we decided we weren't going to make our reservation at Queen Willhelmina State Park Lodge if we didn't leave it at home. At first, we regeared towards taking the two currently running trikes, Gilbert and Sponge Bob, but in short order, decided that we'd just drive. We were both pretty tired to take on a 4-5 hour ride with a pretty short turnaround.
Sunday morning, back home and back at it.
The tank got replacement gauges. I had originally bought these for Puff, but ended up with a single multifunction instrument designed for motorcycles.
On the left is oil pressure, the right is a tachometer. I also replaced the two ugly indicator bulbs, which were both simply wired to keyed power, with some slick little bulbs that happen to be green. Not sure if they will both remain green, but they could...
The fuel door looks as incredible as I had expected....
The trunk required a bit of rework. All the racks were painted with "chrome" paint and occasionally put on with new hardware, where appropriate. Riveted the turn/tail lights back in. They will be wired soon.
The wires need covering, too!! One feature we really liked was the use of an S&S air breather cover to hide the fuse block and some wiring behind. A bit of 1200 and 2000 grit sanding, followed by buffing with tripoli and the cover is nearly chrome bright.
Reassembling the pedals took longer than expected. Big surprise, huh? I disassembled the master cylinders and put on a coat of paint. Though not shown here, I rebuilt the throttle cable attachment. I still don't like that and it *will* be redesigned.
The new fric material was easy enough to stick down on nice clean paint :)
More to come...
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