Monday, July 27, 2009

Warrior Racing Trike - setback


Well, today's progress was...failure!

After many hours of welding, cutting, drilling, then cutting and welding again, I have decided that not only is the crossover steering system much to finicky to get right, it is not nearly as good as the simple tied Ackerman system.

Even with a huge bucket of miscellaneous steering rods, plates, and do-hickeys, it took all day to get this to work (with luck).

In the end, it was almost impossible to achieve a good balance of turning radius and wheel scrub, so I am scrapping that idea. Even on the commercial trikes that us this system, I have heard reports of wheel drag in sharp corners, and to be honest, that is just not acceptable to me.

I am going back to a system much like the StreetFox, but will just tie into the right control arm like I did back in the dark ages on my Marauder trike concept.


This also makes alignment easy (no guessing), so that is so much better for the plans. I did manage to get chain clearance and the under seat steering to work nicely, so it was not a fully wasted day.

I know... I can't win-em-all, but that doesn't mean I can't throw my wrench across the room and cuss out loud, right?

Tomorrow...I win.