Progress Pictures
Funny thing about this. I joined this group for the VW Trike portion and here I am posting about progress on my Stratoliner Trike.
A bit on how I got to this point: Three years ago I was in a bet that I couldn't build a trike rear end assembly for my 2007 Stratoliner for under $500. I accepted and spent the next 9 months designing and building one. I did get it built and road tested for just under $300! Of course I had to fabricated some molds and fiberglassed a body with fenders to top it off.
Painting it myself, and wiring it up, along with new tires my wife calculated I spent between $800 to $900 total. The original rear axle was from a wrecked Ford Expedition which I got for $50, rims were free, paint was $150, 2" square tubing was $35, Sprocket for $45, Tires were around $200, bearings and seals under $100, air shocks I bartered for, and of course I put a butt load of time into it. The bet was just for getting the axle built and working so I won a case of Diet Caffeine Free Coke. PAYDAY!!!!
After putting around 15,000 miles on it a bearing blew out while on a very long road trip destroying the center assembly (six months ago). Of course going 80 MPH pulling a loaded bike trailer in the mountains didn't help any. Well now to present day, I have a new carrier unit from an old Chevy S10 and fabricating a new one with pillow block bearings. I did research the bearings for this use and I should not come close to their max RPM's nor load capacity.
So I will now shut up and begin posting pictures of what I've done. Oh yea, I'm adding reverse this time which explains the flexplate. Pictures will be posted one at a time with an explanation.