I’m moving forward with the collection of parts for the drivetrain. The bits between the engine and wheel are missing. Drive shaft, brakes, U-joint and other things need to be sourced. I’ve been checking both Craig’s List and Ebay but only Ebay has anything consistently. I’m hoping to find another non-running Honda to use for parts, but they seem to be quite scarce here. I’ve ordered the sections of the drive shaft (there are three parts), drive gear hub, shifter rod, brake plate, swing arm, tachometer and others. The mail man will be bringing a lot of this car, bit by bit.

Finding the bits will be almost as much fun as the actual construction. I’ll have to make, or have made, changes to some of the parts. The drive shaft will have to extended considerably and hopefully a reverse gear mechanism added. The rear brake will need to have an auxiliary slave cylinder added to it can participate in the hydraulic braking action of the car instead of relying on the two front wheels.

These and countless other things will have to be planned and created. I’m hoping it will take less than a year. We’ll see.

I traveled down to the DMV to see in person just what I needed to do about getting this project legal after it is finished. There were over 50 people in line waiting for the door to open when I arrived at 7:45. Ouch, apparently the last day of the month is not the best time to choose to visit the DMV. Still, I had told the folks at work I might be late, and I wanted to see how far I’d get in the hour I had before work.

Predictably, I used most of that hour queueing, and then didn’t want to bail on that time invested, so I persisted and got to speak with Dorothy who had more than the usual clerk’s understanding of the fine details of vehicle registration. But my out-of-the-box project had her scratching her head. We took a little walk and visited Jamie in the inspections department and had a talk about what the car would be like and what would be required to get it licensed.

The guys in the inspection department seemed a bit confounded about why I wanted to build a car with three wheels, but were open to the idea. James said that in reviewing this project they would look to Honolulu for guidance since they have more experience with Special Interest Vehicles. Jamie said he would call the head of the DOT, John and get his input on how the Morgan replica would be classified and what would be needed to get it legal. I thanked him and took my leave.

So, that’s as much progress as I had hoped to get in this visit to the DMV. Now to wait for the call from Jamie to tell me what the DOT had ruled on my particular build.