I have no concept what got me started on creating a complete sized electric three wheeled motorcycle but it did turn out to be a labor of enjoy long, extended before the Green craze of electric vehicles came about. In the 70's gas was low-cost and electrical energy was even less costly. I had read about somebody attempting to do this project and I guess figured I could do one as well. I owned a tiny motorcycle store at the time and was usually making custom bikes for other people and this would be my personal project. A great friend Ray Hernandez was a welder by trade and tinkerer at heart and joined me in creating this motorcycle from scratch. My shop had hydraulic lifts so handling the frame and components was substantially easier than getting to man deal with it from location to area. We began with some two and a half inch mild steel square tubing to make the frame itself. I scavenged a neck from an old Honda 750 frame and we built the new frame from there. Ray was a correct welding artist. Each and every weld was a factor of beauty and was perfectly square and true. As the frame took shape, other folks became curious and offered to lend their skills to the project.
A excellent countless hours had been spent planning each and every and every single step of the function. Many nights, no real operate progress was created at all but each and every and every item of the trike needed to be detailed so as not to make way more errors and miscues than we needed to. Our layout called for a fairly narrow rear end assembly as a full sized car would be substantially too wide. A Toyota pickup was just the answer. It was in proportion to the trike and the top element was it was no cost from the wrecking yard. We took the rear apart, sand blasted it and then did the re-assembly. Quite a few coats of red paint later it was a thing of beauty. The rear along with a set of leaf springs cannibalized from a further truck, produced mounting the entire rear end really very simple. Ray added some leaf spring hangers to the base frame and 4 bolts later we had a rear in the trike. We opted for a stock 750 Honda front fork with extended tubes and heavier springs to carry the weight of the bike. Working with a stock front finish created handlebars and other accessories a snap to mount plus it looked beneficial. The trike was now on all of it is 3 wheels.
Motor energy was subsequent so I spent some considerable time investigating how much horsepower distinctive sized electric motors or generators could produce. An electrical generator when supplied with external energy, becomes a rather effective motor. A buddy owned an aircraft parts warehouse and had a bunch of generators from old WW2 aircraft. Checking with manufacturer we identified that if supplied with twelve volts the generator could generate up to ninety horsepower. That is pure horsepower. A formula we located compares one horsepower of electric to three horsepower of a gas engine. That signifies our thirty horsepower electric motor was the same as making use of a ninety horsepower gas motor. The biggest distinction was our motor weighed about twenty three pounds. A straightforward flat plate welded to the top rated of the rear finish housing, a couple of bolts and toothed drive belt and we had our drive train complete. The entire bottom section below the seat was laid out to hold twelve, deep sump six volt marine batteries. An on board charger was concealed under the rear deck location above the rear end.
The most hard element of this entire project was to configure the electrical circuits to each run and charge the batteries. The throttle was a standard motorcycle hand throttle mounted on the handlebars. The cable finish was directly connected to a rheostat that controlled the amount of voltage becoming fed to the generator at any one particular time. The more you turned the throttle, the more quickly you went. Pretty straight forward. As the cycle developed I realized that adding some type of charging method would prolong the battery life and boost the potential travel distance on a single charge of the batteries. By mounting a twelve volt car generator at a ninety degree angle to the rear finish and above the generator (motor) by extending the rear ends tail shaft and adding one more pulley and v-belt it was potential to create electric whenever the cycle was in motion such as accelerating and decelerating. There was no energy generated at a stop but then once more no power was being utilised either. The extremely smaller quantity of electric employed for lights at night or turn signals was so modest it did not effect the offered travel distance of the bike. We did indeed burn out a couple of relays by accidental cross wiring or just plain wrong wiring but no a single was injured except my wallet. Cables, relays and switches expense me a compact fortune but as soon as we began there was no turning back.
The trikes body was created to fit around the bike itself and the idea of a two person bike was based typically on common motorcycle positioning. One rider behind the other. The body was built of Styrofoam covered with fiberglass sheets and epoxy. As this was my initially attempt at a project of this size it did take a while to get the hang of applying the glass and resins but in two weeks or so the body had taken on its simple shape. Tail lights and turn signals had been added and some base coat primer and the bike was ready for it is to begin with road test.
We had constructed a hassle-free but lovely control panel that sat in between the drivers legs and with its brushed stainless steel finish, amperage gauge, voltmeter, key switch and an "on" light the simplicity was in it itself pretty sophisticated. The "on" light was required as with the crucial in the on position and any movement of the throttle at all, the bike was moving. Immediately after a few whoops by an individual turning the throttle and not realizing the essential was on, the on light became fairly essential.
I ought to say the initially ride was indeed a thrill. Aside from the pride of knowing that I had developed this bike from scratch the total silence when riding was unreal. No motor noise and genuinely only the hum of the tires on pavement produced the ride virtually surreal. You were moving suitable along and generating no noise at all. I tested the machine to speeds of sixty five miles per hour on the open road and it performed flawlessly. Making use of it about town and back and forth the ten miles to perform each and every day, I never ever ran out of electrical power. The 110 volt on board charger was plugged in at perform all day and overnight at home and alot more than handled the charging duties.
I employed the bike for two years and as usual a new project came along that drew my attention. The bike was stored in a close friends garage never ever to be utilised once more.
Pete Ackerson
