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Beer Runner On A Budget

Wicked Willy’s Beer Runner on a Budget – Part 3

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Article by: Wayne at Wicked Willy’s Choppers

In this section, we will cover a couple of things including the final work of the rear end for the trike. Here we will talk about a few things missed by all the do-it-yourselfers out there. We will also cover truing and our brakes.

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Now that we have our rear end tacked up, it’s time to pull it back out of the frame and start welding up the bearing hangers on the ends of our tubes. If you remember in last month’s issue, we placed our axles in to make sure everything lined up.

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We have unbolted the rear end blocks and slid the rear end out. This is a good time to check the hangers and make sure everything is going to slide easy so when we are finished we can adjust our chain just like one would on a two-wheel bike. The only difference is you will have just a little more to square up.

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Here, you can see where Larry has welded in the bearing hangers on the end of the axle tubes all the way around. As soon as it has cooled all the way down, we’ll start the truing of the tubes so our axles will run true.

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Shown here, Larry is using a rose bud on his torch to heat up the axle tube in a certain spot to get the tube to draw so that our axles will be true. This is a very important step that some people don’t know to do, and is also why I took the frame to a shop that does nothing but transmissions and rear ends. Like I have said time and time again, it’s sometimes cheaper in the long run to pay someone for the skills they know.

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This is a close-up of Larry truing the tubes with the rose bud. This is a trick that is forgotten by the old timers and not seen by the young guys. I’ve seen this method of truing done a few years ago for the first time when I was a young boy and have never forgotten it. After the area being heated has cooled, Larry will use a dial indicator on the rotor and spin it to make sure its run out is true.

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After the truing is done, he uses an indicator to check the run out and as you can see, his fixture allows him to hold the whole rear end up and check it. This is what our rear end looks like with the axle hats and brake rotors mounted to it.

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This is the brake caliper we will be using. It is made by Wilwood and will work with our ¾ motorcycle master cylinder. When using a car type caliper, one needs to make sure your master cylinder will pump (I call it stroke) enough fluid to expand your brake pads so your trike will stop correctly.

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You can see here how nice our calipers will mount up to our new trike rear end. In these last three “how to” sections on the trike, I tried to cover in detail not to show you so much as how to build a rear end but to show you how important it is to get everything lined up as close as one can. A trike rear end can be your best friend or your worst enemy. This will allow your trike to track straight and to stop correctly.

If you have any questions about our trike so far, feel free to e-mail me at wayne @wickedwillychoppers.com or drop me a line at 828-303-0422.

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