So, I’ve decided to put my CX500 (Tinkerbell) trike build on hold and get stuck in to my Harley trike build.
The bike itself started life as a late Evo Softail heritage springer. She was one of 10 bikes stolen by a biker gang from a Harley dealer in the late 90’s and turned in to a custom chopper and re-registered in 2002 as a Custom classic. I’m unsure of the rest of her history, but she ended up with my best friend’s (well he’s more like a brother actually) uncle Kev. My “brother” ended up with the chopper and turned her in to a bobber. I then bought her off me brother to turn in to a trike.
I decided to buy a Casarva brute belt drive trike conversion kit for this project and I’m very pleased I did. The design and build quality is outstanding and the parts provided are extensive. I went for the cradle and BMW diff with half shafts that I need to shorten once the diff position is finalised, an anti roll bar, BMW hubs and disks with VW callipers, a handbrake kit, their own design of beautiful fully adjustable shocks and enough tubing/rose joints to fabricate the mounts on the cradle to bolt to the stock Harley frame. I also bought a Zodiac reverse gear kit.
As soon as my workshop extension was completed I fitted a 5 degree triple tree kit and 10” over billet forks to the bike. I’ve been advised that this will make her handle better as a trike once converted. I also fitted a set of Vance and Hines big radius pipes.
Over the last 2 days I’ve stripped the back end off the bike and built up the diff cradle/swingarms/shocks/roll bar/wire wheels etc so I can begin mocking up and offering it up to the back of the frame. I’ve also machined and fitted a chrome pulley to the BMW diff.
At first I couldn’t get everything to flow together because with the bike frame at its original ride height and the cradle in a position where the belt didn’t rub on the cradle it was all at different heights and just looked like a bike with a cradle stuck on the back
eventually I had to rise the ride height of bike frame to get things to flow and look right, which meant the belt rubs on the cradle frame, so that is a job I will tackle tomorrow by altering the cradle to give the belt free passage. Also the big radius pipes were too long and hitting the diff cradle, so I’ve taken off the rear heatshields for now and will cut them down at some point, but in the meantime I have removed the baffle and cut down the pipe that was catching the frame still, then re-fitted the baffle. I know the difference in length between the 2 pipes could cause an imbalance, but as the pipes aren’t balanced and she still runs like a Swiss watch I’m not worried about it for now. I’ve ordered a laser level machine so I can get everything perfectly in line and level, once it is delivered I can start planning the fabrication of the mounting points, diff mount bushes and alter the half shafts to the correct lengths.
Those of you who have been following my build on Tinkerbell will know I’m quite aspy and takes loads of pictures of my projects. I always save them to an album in the Google cloud thingy and then share the link to people reading my threads. All you have to do is click on the link and if you join the album group you will get updated when I upload new pictures
the album also has loads of pics in it from when my brother Pete had got the bike and his conversion of her in to a bobber. So here’s the link
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tbhnrnHgUdRBVU3L9
I “think” I’ve also attached a couple of pics to this post, but not sure if it’s worked or not
Anyhoo, sit back and have a good look through the pics, I hope I haven’t bored you to death in the meantime, I do tend to waffle on
Take care, Steph
to join the 2 halves together I chucked some 3mm wall tubing in the lathe and bored it so it was a friction fit over the shafts. As it happened the shaft had a groove machined in it that acted like a screw thread, so I was able to screw both halves of the shaft in to the tube until they met half way. I then welded around the ends of the tube over the shafts. After that I used a cutting disc to cut through the outer tube and over the both ends of the shaft. Once deep enough I then welded them all together and cleaned it up. It will be super straight and hopefully strong enough to cope with the 1640 Evo.