my mini chopper

[mckutzy]

im going this week end to do some more work on it and i have to bring it home bring it home. it going to be fun i think.
I sadly didnt take any pics of the hub when i first got it made. If ur able to get a hole saw and drill a hole in a plate, that will make some assurance of a proper size hole for ur axle or a sprocket hub with out some major filing/grinding to make it fit. A way to find a truer running hub is rig it up to some thing that u can spin it on, not even very fast at all, and with a piece of chalk on a stick mounted to the rig, u can find the wobble quite quickly and fix it with a light smack with a lead hammer( i prefer this way, its non marking) before u do the final welding


what was the major problem with the bike front tire?

 

[Blazkowiez]

As cool as it looked it made the bike stupid hard to steer safely. I cant quite explain it because I'm not much for mini-bike mechanics aside from brakes. Just scared the hell out of me trying to turn the thing at 30mph... needs to be at least 2 inches wide, we had another bike with a very wide front tire from one of those chopper bikes in the shop, that seemed to steer much much better. The turning radius of the fork couldnt have helped but I think the main factor was the width of the tire.

 

[mckutzy]

ahh yes, well ill look for a wider tire to put on or a new front tire all together. for the most part i was thinking that this tire wasnt going to be the final wheel but more for a moving test of the bike it self. i have matched OD for the tires witch made thing easier for leveling..24" for both.

 

[Blazkowiez]

Fantastic, I'm very glad you have safety in mind when you'll be traveling 30mph or faster on something you've created yourself. Seriously, I am so lucky to have never gotten hurt so far... torque converter on a mini-baja clocked me at 52....

 

[mckutzy]

im definatly not going to bringing it up fast right away, the rear tire is one of those 50kph/ for50km doughnut spares, and im not too sure if the speed rating is with weight on or not, so im not going to stress it too much off the bat.. i know they can blow pretty bad, but there is enough room i can change it to a pro tire for a car which i have been looking for.

 

[mckutzy]

i had welded a brace to the neck of the bike, a piece of 3"X 1/4 plate to give some strength in the area. it also limits the forks from over travel on the turns.

i wanted to know what size bars to make, 1" or 7/8" dia. my riser has a 1" hole but i can make an adapter for it to fit, i like the feel of a 7/8" but what do people think?

 

[newrider3]

Go with 7/8". Definitely easier to find parts; you can use motorcycle as well as bicycle stuff on 7/8".

 

[acg23]

gotta picture of the finished bike?

 

[mckutzy]

In the last few years I have had some job layoffs, so I havent got any progress done, very sadly... but a month ago I started the motor and it worked great. im still needing some parts like throttle and some materials for other parts.

 

[acg23]

aww. thats too bad mann. well get a picture up when you get around to finishing it.

 

[gordon]

hey do you have any plans for the chopper

 

[mckutzy]

I just thought this up myself. I just sat in my computerchair at a good height, measured it, compared tires to the height and kinda went from there. hope fully soon I will get some bars and throttle assembly, or I might make one not too sure just yet.

 

[studysession]

Looks great

 

[mckutzy]

hello gents. I now have power and tools and space at my house now and I am a happy mo-fo. I put some new bearing on the head tube I scoffed of of a donor bike I had, works great now. I also used the bars off that bike aswell. kinda a flat drag look to it, what I was looking for anyways. Ill be posting pics of that soon.

What I am still having problems is that the jack shaft is too low to be more in line to the rear sprocket. I wasnt looking right when I was building and completely missed this. The chain will cut into the frame if/when hooked up. I am wanting to raise the jackshaft up a couple of inches or so but Im not too sure how. Im low on materials and no money for this right now... but I have time which isnt any better but hey I can build something. Some thoughts were using sections of pipe to bring the pillow block up, or I have some bed rail and I could make a channel to raise the height, But either way any thoughts?

 

[gordon]

you could put some box section on top of the existing box section. maybe have it higher then you need it. I had this problem a fiew times when I make something out of my head

 

[acg23]

glad to see you finishing up this one. if you could get some more rectangular tubing the best thing to do would be stack another one on top and then cap all 4 sides using two plates.

 

[mckutzy]

glad to see you finishing up this one. if you could get some more rectangular tubing the best thing to do would be stack another one on top and then cap all 4 sides using two plates.

Thats kinda what Im thinkin. I have to scrounge some of that up soon.

Today I went to do some more work, I was trying to figure some thing for a throttle setup. I wen ahead and used a brake lever from a scrap bike I had, actually the one I used the bars from.
I got the lever on and hooked up a cable to the throttle, when to do some testing and see how it worked. Got the motor and all the other bolts tighten up a bit. started up.. then stopped. tried again, stopped. was thinking.. looked in the gas tank....NO gas..

so hopefully in a bit Ill try again soon with a fuller tank.

 

[landuse]

I have done that with my lawnmower (the no gas thing). I must have tried to pull start the sucker for about 10 minutes before i decided to look in the petrol tank. I felt like an a$$

 

[Clayton]

I did that with my kart the other day. I started checking for spark and all sorts of other troubleshooting things when I looked in the tank...oh ****!

 

[mckutzy]

Just before I looked, I was going to run back to the house to find some rubbing alcohol for the tank, the motor had been sitting for a few months, and thought that moisture had gotten in the tank, but then I was like oh well lets see how much gas and what other stuff I can see. Classic mistake of troubleshooting.

Ill see if I can get some pic up this weekend.