Things Heat Up Again (Namely, Dave's Stomach!)

Well, we got the steering levers and linkages all set up and bolted in place using a plate my dad made up with a pivot for each lever.

While making the steering levers, the project's second fire related incident occurred when, while grinding one of the levers, my dad's shirt ignited. It burned holes through all three of his (polyester) shirts, left a minor burn on his stomach, and burned one of his fingers where the polyester melted to it while instinctively beating out the fire. After changing shirts and bandaging it up, it was back to work.

We rigged cables for the throttle, the brake, and the clutch, hooked up a throttle trigger on the right hand steering lever, and rigged a pedal to act as a brake and clutch.

After a very successful test drive using a 2x4 as a seat, we mounted the seat I've been saving for a tank seat for quite some time. After another relatively successful test drive we brought it back in to make a few minor changes to the clutch cable and to move the shift linkage up next to the driver's seat (seeing as the linkage broke during the last test drive anyway.) We noticed that we needed to adjust the throw on the idler pulley arm so all the tension was taken off the belt when the clutch pedal was in. We also decided to eliminate the dual purpose clutch/brake pedal and to make the pedal just a clutch, and to rig a brake trigger on the left hand steering lever.


Running the throttle trigger.

My dad taking the first test drive with the brake pedal and steering levers hooked up.