It’s a New Year!

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It’s a new year and I’ve taken the time to get to know the Honda engine a bit better. It’s been a while since this engine has seen a wrench and its missing a few nuts and bolts from its removal from the previous owner’s bike. I took off the coolant pipe and found that the coolant has dried up and left some residue on the inside of the pipes. I should be able to wash that out and dissolve the gunk easily enough. I also had a look down the intake ports at the valves and while I did see some surface rust, things looked pretty good. I’ll take the engine apart anyway to check it out and have bought a gasket set for that purpose. I’m worried about corrosion on the cylinder walls but things have looked pretty good so far otherwise. Both inspection ports show a very clean engine interior. That’s terrific.

Steeling myself for the purchase of some steel

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I got my cut list together for the 1″ x 1″ 16 gauge square tube need for the frame and looked up the price on a mainland website. $140 for the quoted length of 140 feet. Ok, but what about shipping? This site didn’t offer shipping but at least I had a start. I called a local shop that carries steel to see what their price might be. Total before tax was $970! Ouch. I didn’t order and went back to looking online for possibilities. I did find one that offered shipping. Their price for the steel was a bit higher, $170 and shipping for my zip code was $308. Ok, not cheap, but way less than the local shop.

I did some more searching for local places that might have steel so I could get more quotes. I found one in Lahaina, a 40 minute drive, and he said that while he was currently out of stock, he had a shipment coming in next week. He’ll give me a call with the price when the steel arrives.

I suspect that the dealers in Honolulu might have much more competition and I could possibly find an acceptable price there and have Young Brothers bring it over on the next barge. At least I have a top end price and I know what the base cost is. The rest is shipping, markup and taxes. Now I have to find the best deal out there before continuing on with the build. But steel is heavy and not so much in demand so it will be an expensive part of this build no matter what.

Parts Deux

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I’ve been collecting parts from ebay for several weeks now. I keep looking on Craig’s List for more parts locally, but it seems that my fears are well founded, there are few Honda CX650 or CX500 in the islands. I feel lucky to have found my engine at all, and for a good price as well.

My latest purchase arrived yesterday: a pair of carbs complete with intake manifolds. The manifolds were missing from my bike, though the carbs were there. Only a few were listed on ebay and I think their owners considered them to be made of irreplaceabillium. Listed priced for each of the two manifolds needed was for around $175. Ouch. I think there may be issues with the rubber that makes up part of the manifold. Regardless, this pair of carbs had a buy-it-now price of $125. And they are in better shape than the ones I have. I’ll be able to clean them up and make  them look great with the directions I found on the web.

I’m also measuring the frame from the donor Datsun truck that will hold the engine and front suspension all together.  I’d like to have the engine placed back a bit from the stock Datsun location so it give the proper Morgan three wheeler look so I have to see if I can move the sway bar to the rear of the tires instead of the front. This will give the car a more authentic look.

The measurement tools in Photoshop are a help, but I’m still working on creating a CAD layout of the work to be done so I can visualize changes easily. Creating the plans in a CAD program hasn’t been easy however as the User Interface is not what I’m used to. So I’m also getting ready to put pen to paper…. a giant roll of butcher paper purchased at Costco. I did get an A in drafting after all.

Onwards.

 

More hands on deck

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My girls have come in from California for a vist and will be helping with getting the engine ready (meaning cleaned up) for dissassembly. It’s time to check out the engine and see if  it has any major issues. It will be a fun hands-on for  them as they don’t get to see many engines taken apart.

The girls at dinner excited at hearing the description of the new project car.

The best laid plans

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I’ve got a good idea of what the end result should look like and I have a lot of inspiration from various web sites. The JZR Three Wheeler seems to be the closest to what I have in mind. I’d like to purchase a kit, but the purchase price and added shipping are out of my reach. And there’s a legal complication- the folks at the DMV gave me a call and told me that the final product of my labors would allowed on the road and would be classed as a motorcycle. That’s no surprise as most of the Morgan three wheelers seem to be classed as motorcycles.

One surprise is that in Hawaii, apparently motorcycles are not allowed to have seats side by side (Really? no side cars?). This means that my build must be a single seater. And I was told that if I were to buy a JZR frame, I wouldn’t be allowed to modify it at all. However, since I am building my own frame, I’m allowed to make changes to the design when building it. I’m not quite sure how that will work out as I don’t want to narrow the body drastically. The drive shaft will run down the center of the car, and if the width of the frame is narrowed by much, I’d need to straddle the drive shaft and shifter. That just doesn’t make any sense.

At this point, I’d like to develop some CAD plans for the frame and body so that I can do some test adjustments of the body size as well as determine the amount of needed materials. I’m using a Mac and the number of CAD packages available is less than a Windows box, but I’m sure I’ll find one that works. I’ve downloaded FreeCAD and will give it a whirl to see if it’s suitable. It’s also available for Windows and Linux boxes as well, so give it a try.

In the end, I may simply leave the body as close to the stock Morgan as possible and simply not put in a right hand seat. The drive shaft will actually be on the right of center and if I put in an electric reverse as planned, it will be on the drive shaft itself, taking up more room over there.