Rule One: Test before you put it ALL back together.

Monday night, I got the rest of the engine wiring and hoses on, the exhaust, the bumper… Started the engine up (it cranked for about one second and lit off without touching the throttle… I love EFI)…. All looked good.

I knew I would probably need to adjust the clutch cable before taking it for a spin. That’s when I noticed that the clutch arm does not budge. At all. Well, it wiggles with the minimal play that the shaft has naturally, but otherwise, it was completely immobile.

Long story short, on Tuesday, I called AMS to consult with Steve again. He recommended that I remove all the new parts and bring them in, along with the old parts and as much other information as I could gather. Tuesday night, I fooled with it for a while, still looking for something, but pulled the parts out and got them ready to go.

This afternoon, I took everything in to AMS and we determined that everything should be all the right components. He suggested a couple of things to check concerning cable adjustment and clearances. I also consulted a couple of BTW folk. At this point, it’s a mystery to all, but my mission is to measure and test to see if I can find what’s not making up.

So, when I got home and got started, about 8PM, I first checked that the throwout bearing, fork, cable and pedal were all moving freely.

 Reassembled, same thing.

I pulled it apart again. I did some measuring. I put a straight edge across the mounting face of the transaxle and measured to the face of the throwout bearing. It was 2.68 inches. I also put the straightedge on the face of the pressure plate collar thingy and measured to the engine block face that mates with the transaxle. It was 2.81 inches. These two together should mean that, once assembled, the throwout bearing should be resting about 1/8″ from the pressure plate. This corresponds with the expected range of motion for the assembled clutch.

I verified that the clutch arm has it’s full range of motion while disassembled.

I also compared the old and new throwout bearings:

Though they are constructed in rather different ways, all the dimensions that matter appear to be identical, or at least compatible.

While I had it apart, I attempted to use a steel plate and some clamps to verify that the pressure plate can indeed move when pressed. It does. There was not a reasonable way to press the clutch and verify that the clutch disk is released when it is pressed. I have in mind a custom tool that could test that, but I was not prepared to fabricate such a tool just then. I put it all back together again, with the old throwout bearing, and verified that nothing had changed.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

While I had the camera ready, I documented the free play in the clutch arm while assembled and it corresponds with what I would expect.

So, I have decided that unless some radical new information comes to light before bedtime Thursday, I am not going to be able to drive the trike to the benefit/show this weekend.

I will, however, tow it in to the show. We are auctioning off a donated paint job and this trike has the paint from a previous auction and we hope to drum up lots of interest in the auction!

I dropped by Automotive Machine and Supply after work to procure parts and consult the oracle. Steve verified my concerns that there was supposed to be a collar on the pressure plate for the throwout bearing to contact and further that it’s absence is the real reason the throwout bearing jumped the tracks. He also verified that the play in the input shaft is normal, though he agrees that I should change out the seal.

So, $86 dollars later, I have a new clutch cover and pressure plate, as well as the clutch fork and such.

Besides, the old pressure plate and fingers were more damaged than they first appeared:

Note the bent fingers at the lower right. They were not really apparent with the cover installed.

The installation of clutch fork included the usual minor trauma. Installation of the clutch cover gave me a new problem that make me chuckle.

My clutch pilot tool has a ring for a handle and it was too big to fit through the collar on the pressure plate. I applied a bit of heat and a bit of sculpting and now it fits.

Otherwise there were no particular difficulties with the physical installation, other than the usual big hands in a small space issues…

After the delays, I got the engine bolted on and decided that it was late enough that I didn’t want to tear in to the wiring, fuel, exhaust and bumper. They will have to wait for Friday or Saturday…

I got all but the four bolts pulled off Tuesday night, then finished pulling the engine out last night.

It looks like there was no really serious damage done by the rogue throwout bearing. The fork was pushed too far and the throwout bearing jumped off it.

You can see the broken finger and a piece of a chewed up spring clip laying on the bottom of the bell housing. The remaining clip holding the throwout bearing has been ground against something as well. At the time of the event, the engine was still running, but in the process of towing it home, the broken finger apparently jammed between the flywheel and the bell housing, preventing me from starting the engine.

Once off the fork, it appears that the bearing landed such that the fingers on the clutch pressure plate rubbed against the bearing carrier. You can see the galling on the bearing carrier in this picture:

 It remains to be seen whether the damage to the pressure plate fingers is significant:

Some pressure plates have some kind of disc attached to the fingers, like this:

… but this one never has, at least not while I’ve had it. I’m not sure whether or not it’s missing, but since clutch operation seems reasonably normal without it, I’m going to assume it’s ok without it.

Speaking of assumptions, I took a guess that some fairly severe looking play in the input shaft of the transaxle might have been a factor in the damage done. Upon clearer thinking, I now realize that this shaft is not left hanging out there, but is rather supported by the pilot bearing in the end of the engine crankshaft. Duh! I am going to replace that seal while I’m in there anyway…

Picking up parts on the way home tonight; it’s entirely possible that I may have this thing mobile tomorrow…

It’s been a long, hot, busy summer. Now that it’s cooling off enough to be able to work outside without medical intervention, I have a lot of projects to get caught up on!

Another delay, though a welcome one, was our friend John visiting. Besides being a fascinating conversationalist with a number of truly interesting stories from each of the 44 countries he’s visited, he is a tireless and skilled worker who would have to be tied down to *not* work around the house. He did what is basically 4 projects, but also myriad related and unrelated work, the whole of which is that our driveway and garage are cleared out and ready to use! As in, the first time since moving here, including the time Gabby was here before I was. My tools are all indoors! I wont know how to act…

As for projects, I have three MAJOR projects… four, really…

First, and only because it’s probably the easiest, I am replacing the airshocks on Sponge Bob Square Trike with coilovers. The ride is expected to be rough, but then so is it with 100 lbs of air in the shocks. The trouble is, that 100 lbs of air is 20 pounds in about 30 minutes and down that low, it rides goofy. It has a shimmy or shuffle or whatever you want to call a side to side motion.

Second and third is to get the clutch/transaxle issue on the Dragon trike (possibly named Puff at this point; I like the irony, but the word doesn’t scan well… needs a couple of sylables) solved and tune the EFI system. It only had about 10 miles on the engine when the transaxle trauma occurred. It’s in basically default running tune.

Fourth is to get Buzz running. I have a new Motion Pro carburetor sync tool that needs breaking in. I’d like to get him running and put him up for sale. I’d like to do EFI on another bike, but I think it needs to be a bigger one. It’s hard to match a modern motorcycle throttle body to a older small displacement engine. I could probably fabricate an intake manifold for a single TB from an ATV or personal watercraft, but it’s so much easier to just bolt on one that will work. I think I’d like to tackle a Yamaha XS750 or XS850 triple, using Triumph intakes…

Short version: Went on vacation; discovered an old problem that I made for myself; no broken bones, bloodletting or other trauma.

My most lovely and cool wife was on a road trip for work week before last. While she was gone, it was my plan (plan: n. a specific project or definite purpose that will not go as intended) to get the dragon back on the road, but it was just too freakin’ hot to enjoy working outdoors enough to get off my duff an do it.


Trikes did well with two exceptions.

I finally decided it was more like a loss of spark than a fuel issue and it occurred to me that the alarm immobilizes the bike by interrupting the coil. We tolerated it for another day because I didn’t want to risk tearing into mostly working wiring and making something *really* break.

We were in Pedernales Falls SP, under a bit of shade, with the seat off the bike. I dug in, found the two connections, saw that I had used crimp connectors and gave them a tug. They came loose with very little effort. I know better and have been bitten by crimp connectors before, but at the time I was putting in the alarm, I’m sure I justified using crimp connectors “just this once”.

So, I soldered those two connections and checked the starter lockout connectors, which are also crimped, but crimped better. Gilbert ran great the rest of the day and all the way home today.

The other exception was really the escalation of another known issue. The yellow trike has air shocks. It seems to only want to handle correctly with them fully inflated, to 100 PSI. Trouble was, they would leak down over a couple of days. More trouble now because they leak down in a few hours. I pretty much top them off at every stop, if it’s been a little while since the last top off.

At least I can top them off with a portable air compressor. Almost none of the air hoses out there will inflate over about 70 PSI, and most are more like 50 PSI.

After work on Friday, I picked up the replacement transaxle. From the part number, it appears as though it may be a 1971 or later model 12 volt transaxle, rather than, as it was advertised, a 1963 converted 6 volt. Yea me!

I had a busy weekend otherwise, so I didn’t get to install it. I moved it around a few times, but that was it. Chances look pretty good for getting some work done on it weekday evenings this week.

Sorry these updates are taking so long. Here it is Wednesday and I’m just now writing about last weekend…

Saturday morning, later than hoped but earlier than expected, we headed for Star Of The River. The trike sits low to the ground and the bumper and trailer hitch are the lowest point when the front wheel is on the stinger, a hitch made to carry the front wheel of a trike so that the trike can be towed like a trailer. Sitting still, it was only an inch or so off the ground. Every bump, intersection or driveway forced hard contact between the hitch and the ground. Mere blocks from home, the reinforcing ring around the receiver had been knocked loose, held now only by the top edge. *My* welds attaching the hitch to the bumper held. The Chinese welds on the hitch did not. One point for the home team.

The dirt roads leading into the site were often sand, but usually crushed stone, about 2″ chunks. The tire ruts meant that the higher center of the road spent maybe 60-70% of the time in contact with the hitch. There was not much to be done about it.

Everyone liked the trike; though some questioned why I would make it so complex, put so much *stuff* on it to fail. Shrug. Hey, it’s my hobby. How do you expect to have road stories if your trike runs 100% of the time?!?!

So, on Saturday and Sunday, I was able to putt around the campsite a little, gave a couple of rides. I was careful to park where I could pull forward to leave as often as possible, for reverse was unobtainable. Third seemed the best bet in most instances.

Due to the condition of the roads, I took it all the way up past the bad stuff, nearly to the highway and parked it there. Gabby took me back down to the truck, where we finished up our packing, then headed out, me on Sponge Bob Square Trike. We stopped at the gate, loaded the Dragon on the stinger and headed for home.

Monday afternoon, after Gabby went to work (no such thing as a holiday there), I tore into reworking the shifter.

My original plan was to cut off the old shifter hanger and replace it with a new one I picked up long ago, then reinstall the shaft with new bushings.

I even got so far as to repair the cuts before two things stopped me.

First, I actually would need two shifter hangers because the builders put in two in a row to proper support the shaft before the first U-joint. Second, the U-joints they used, even if I dressed the welds down, would not fit through the bushings.

 I decided instead to install the shaft and tighten the rings down to eliminate the clearance.

Yes, this makes it a metal on metal sliding contact and it won’t last forever, no matter how well I remember to maintain it.

Still, and I’m sure anyone would agree, that it is WAY better than the way it was.

Another shifting problem is the tendancy of the shifter assembly to flex on it’s single supporting rod, so I added a piece of quarter inch round rod as a brace. I then found that it would then flex in only one axis, so I added another to lock it in three dimensions.

As an aside, I have decided that I definitely prefer gas welding over wire welding. There’s no spatter and very little residue, unless you didn’t clean the metal well before you started. The puddle is easier to control, for me anyway.

Even after these mods, it was still hard to reach 1st and 3rd. I found that there was some previously unnoticed interference between the frame and the coupler on the shaft going in the nose of the transaxle.

This is the clearance before I cut away a little more of the plate.

After the cut, still rough. Sorry, I didn’t take any more pictures after a cleaned it up!

This cleared the way for all four gears and reverse with little or no difficulty shifting.

Well, some difficulty. In reading about shifting troubles, one of the symptoms of clutch disengagement problems is to sit in neutral, idling, with the clutch out. Push the clutch in, count to 3 or even 5, move the shift lever. Any gear grinding at this point indicates that the clutch is not fully disengaging. I do have a bit of that. It’s much easier to downshift while still rolling; not so easy at a full stop.

I remember that the input shaft to the transaxle had a substantial amount of play in it. I could see how the clutch disc might “droop” down, allowing the top edge to contact some moving parts, even with the pressure plate disengaged.

Well, I will have a chance to investigate sooner than later.

With the trike streetable, I rode out to meet Gabby when she got off work. On the way there, I played with acceleration (which it does quite well, once past a bad hesitation off idle) and verified the speedometer against my GPS. I got to her office early enough to have to wait for a little while. There really is not a comfortable place to sit on the trike except the driver seat, not for me anyway. My…ummm…  manparts are quite crowded if I sit in the back seat. Also, since I have still not put the steps in place, my feet and legs hang, putting that much more pressure *there*. I did find a compromise that works for a short wait, perching kind of on the side of rear seat.

On the way home, I played a bit with speed, dropping back, catching up and dropping back again. Then, as we approached a particular intersection about 1/3 of the way home, I was trying to downshift and I suddenly got a continuous grind, whether or not the clutch was in. I shut off the engine, found neutral and restarted the engine; still grinding. I ended up pushing the clutch way too hard and apparently unseated the throwout bearing, for the clutch pedal lost all feedback. The grinding continued. I shut the engine off and found that, except for neural, any gear I put it in would grind when I moved the trike manually. Definitely *something* up in the transaxle.

Gabby went on home to get the truck and stinger and we got the trike home with little more difficulty. I was even able to push it up our steep driveway (with a running start) on the first try.

I priced rebuilding and/or replacing this transaxle, and while $450-500 seems reasonable compared to other transmission work I’ve had done, $150 for a good used one on Craigslist is even better. I should be picking it up tomorrow or Friday.

I’m home sick today. What I thought were allergies hitting me Sunday night after we got home has become an upper respiratory infection or some such. I crashed on the couch about 6:30 Tuesday night, moved to the bed about midnight and slept till about 11AM today. I even cat-napped a couple times before Gabby served a wonderful Asian style salad with blackened salmon for lunch. That was the boost I needed to get in here and write this up!

Over the next day or two, I will be pulling the old transaxle out so that I can put the replacement in as soon as possible after I get it. I really hope to be back on the road for tuning for the weekend.

Short version: I got the trike on the road with an iffy shifter. Rode it a little on Saturday and Sunday. Worked on the shifter on Monday and got it much more functional. Then the transaxle ate itself.

First, a couple of pictures of it all ready to go!