We Built the Big Wheel They Never Let Us Have!

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:02]Why would you do that?

[00:00:03]>> I thought I was on the bar. I was having too much fun.

[00:00:08]>> Hey, Ryan, I got that bike you were looking for. Oh, perfect. It's just what I always wanted.

[00:00:25]So, I had this idea of wanting to rebuild the classic big wheel tricycle, but in a form that I can enjoy now at 33 years old. We bought the components that we need to build a powered trike. This thing is motorized with a 125cc engine, three gears forward, one gear reverse, including even an electric starter. We also picked up a universal axle kit. We grabbed a cheapo bike that, as you saw, we cut up and mocked up. And this is the rough layout that we're going for. On this table should be all like the raw components that we need to build this project. And of course, we're going to have to do some fabrication along the way to get this thing put together. I'm not going to keep talking about it.

[00:01:01]Let's dive in. So, what we've done here is we've laid out on the fixturing table roughly what we're going for in shape. I think the silhouette is very important to keep that big wheel look. So, the rough idea is to keep this down tube here and notch it. And we're going to bend some custom tubing to make a cradle for around the engine here. Then we'll be able to support the axles with some bearings in the back, which will come with its own challenges because we need to make sure that our sprockets align.

[00:01:24]Thankfully, with this axle kit, we can actually locate all these components in the back anyway that we want. So, that's a handy part to having a kit that's universal. You'll also notice that I have the engine sitting flat on the table. I got to raise it up a little bit to mimic it floating in the air because what we're going to do is after we got our tubing done, we have to make a bracket to mount it to the tubing and of course also make a stand for the seat to bolt to. There's a lot to be made here.

[00:01:46]So, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to get this tubing figured out and tacked together so we have somewhere to mount the basic mechanical components to. I kind of want just a little bit of space under the engine.

[00:01:54]Not too much because I want to look cool and if we go too high it's going to ruin that profile. So, we need a skid plate with how low I'm going to have the engine. When building a project like this, it's really important to take your time and really jig your parts where you really want them to be. Because if I uh skip some steps and maybe have a sloppy fitment, then there's thing called a buildup of tolerances. If I'm sloppy in the beginning, I'll be super sloppy to the end and things won't fit right. Good prep makes for a good result. I think this spacing here should be pretty good, especially since we have these sleeves that will go onto the tires. These are like drift tube sleeves that go around the rubber tires because this much grip in the back will be a problem. In fact, because it's a straight axle, it's constant posy. You're gonna be scrubbing the front wheel if you don't have some kind of slip in the back. You can imagine the rear axle being raised up as much as this tube. I'm not worried about doing that for the prep because it's just going to rake at the back up a little bit. That's no problem. It's going to be equidistant both sides.

[00:02:47]However, I do understand it sounds a little contradictory to what I just said about how perfect prep in the beginning is important. There's another factor to that. Experience also dictates some things. I know how this rear end is going to lift up. I'm not worried about that.

[00:03:02]So, I have this length here of inch and 3/4 tubing that we're going to use for building this trike at least for the main frame portion. But before I get to that point, I really want to get this rear axle actually assembled cuz right now I just have a couple pieces on there. But, you know, like this hub's not even bolted down. The center axle literally it's just flat apart. See the sprocket just fell off. I need to fully assemble this thing. So, let's actually get this assembled before I build the frame. It's a good thing to send instructions because there's a lot of components to this.

[00:03:32]This kit says it does not include brakes. I'm not really worried about that. I want to go forward and sideways.

[00:03:38]Stopping, that's a problem for future me.

[00:03:49]The torque spec is yes. By the way, there's no spec, so it's just yes. Yeah, definitely. So, the way this axle works is you have these keys and along this shaft here, there's a key way. So, there's one the whole length here.

[00:04:01]There's one mil the whole length on this side. So, because it's universal, you have these short little keys here. You can slide them wherever you need them to go and work around it, which I think is pretty neat. Like that. So, our sprocket is then keyed like that.

[00:04:20]snug but still slides for now.

[00:04:23]Sandwich those bolted to this.

[00:04:27]Attach the sandwiches to each other. I did that. You will have to supply your own nuts and bolts for this step. What's the point of having a kit if they don't include the nuts and bolts you need for this step? Was not a cheap kit. After some hunting, I found these bolts.

[00:04:40]They'll work great. However, they don't fit through the plate perfectly. These are like uh 3/16 or whatever. So, I'm going to go ahead and remount these holes. Let's get the work. Then we'll be good to go.

[00:04:53]Little Keanu action.

[00:05:04]I just realized the fun part. So, because I want this to look like a big wheel trike, um it's got to have the iconic coloring of a big wheel trike.

[00:05:11]So, we're going to powder coat all these parts at the end. So, all of this is going to come back apart again.

[00:05:17]that pretty cool.

[00:05:21]Okay.

[00:05:27]Yeah, so I tightened this collar down the whole way.

[00:05:34]Yeah, it's still sliding, which is not supposed to happen. Sometimes when you buy kits like this, it's like 90% helpful. There's still the other 10% you kind of have to work out. We were kind of looking at these parts and you'll notice, I don't know if you can see it on camera very well or not. There's like a burr still down inside there. We're going to have to take a sawzaw, I think, and cut this back further cuz what's supposed to happen is when you tighten this bolt down, it squishes it together and has like a nice friction uh grab.

[00:05:58]And it's not doing that because I believe that this cut needs to be actually squared out the whole way to the back. So, I'm going to clamp this down and we're going to saw all that out. And then hopefully it'll actually grab the way it's supposed to. You'll have that on these bigger jobs. There's the before.

[00:06:12]That was super sketchy, but I think it worked. So now you can see that cut goes the whole way to the base here on the axle. With the bolt tightened down completely, it no longer slides. So it did work. It's a little rough looking, but it works.

[00:06:30]Like I mentioned, I have it set up so I can freely float things around to locate where they're going to be. Being as this is a universal drift trike kit, it is set up to be able to be any width you need it to be. Now we're going to go back to the table and figure out our tubing cuz I think we're ready for that now. Finally. That took way longer than I thought it would.

[00:07:01]Now that we're officially ready for tubing, let's talk about the plan. What I'd really like to do is basically bend a full 180° U. So it' be a straight portion here, a 90 back this way, and then it's going to run down underneath the axle here across the bottom or adjacent, whichever makes sense.

[00:07:20]Probably across the bottom. Um, so we can weld this to the tubing, which will get it really, really, really close to the ground, which I think will look really cool. Right now, the neck goes down to about here in the center of the engine. And I want the rails to be level to the ground. So, we're gonna have a bend also. So, it's gonna go down this way. And then it's going to bend this way to be level to the ground. We'll figure that out. Whatever ends up looking good is what we're going to go with. So, now we're going to dig the bender out and start tubing.

[00:07:58]104.

[00:08:01]>> Chris, what's uh 132 divided by two?

[00:08:04]>> I don't know.

[00:08:05]>> That was very helpful. Thank you.

[00:08:10]>> If you want to be safe, we can go we could go a little tighter.

[00:08:28]So, we're at 44. Move this pin. So, we're at roughly about 3° of spring back. Spring back is like anything metal that you bend. And once when you bend it, kind of wants to bounce back a little bit. They call it spring back.

[00:08:40]When you're doing tubing work, you have to calculate your spring back. You usually do a test piece with. However, we have one length of tubing that we could use for this project. So, we messed this up. We're kind of screwed.

[00:08:49]So, that being said, uh we're doing our spring back test on our first bend. So, we're going to go up 70 total. Before we had to reset this die, we got up to 45 and then when I backed it off, this pin loosened, it went down to 41. So, I'm thinking we're about 3°. That's spring back. We're going to keep going now.

[00:09:09]Over 70 is pretty good. Good job, Johnny.

[00:09:29]Beautiful.

[00:09:31]That was good.

[00:09:38]So, we're going to be about like this.

[00:09:40]I'm really happy with the bends that we came up with. These arms are going to be about like a whatever degree angle, then level out, which is the angle we need to figure out next. And luckily, because I'm not good at math, we have an engineer here. So, Johnny, you can do the math for us.

[00:09:54]>> All right.

[00:09:54]>> So, it's wrong. It's it's it's your fault. This is also Johnny's like first week here. So, see, the stakes are high.

[00:10:07]>> Like that.

[00:10:08]>> This one can be whatever we want it to be.

[00:10:11]>> Okay. do it end up being perfectly 90 from the center T here.

[00:10:15]>> Slightly no different. Yeah, >> I need a new nickname.

[00:10:18]>> Are you sure? This is an ass.

[00:10:27]>> Right there. Right there. Right there.

[00:10:29]That makes it 43. 43 + 67 is 90.

[00:10:32]>> Yeah, >> math man agrees.

[00:10:34]>> I I agree with that phrase.

[00:10:36]>> Now, my gut says we got to go 45 this way and it'll be okay. I mean, worst case scenario, the video comes out 2 weeks late and your first video here is a complete failure. So, I mean, like >> that's definitely going in the video.

[00:10:50]>> So, I'm not 100% sure that what I'm doing is right. I'm going to purposely go on the lighter side of my bend. This is called a witness mark. So, then I can come back, put the tubing in exactly in the exact same point, and bend it further in case of an error. I say in case of an error cuz I'm going to be right. The math man doubts me though.

[00:11:07]And that's the scary part. I do.

[00:11:14]That looks about what we want it to be.

[00:11:18]So, I marked the same witness mark on this side of the tubing as well, but I need to be on the other side of the tubing. So, I'm going to use a piece of tape. As long as I keep this tape square, it will translate to the other side exactly where it needs to be. So, this side of the tape is the line. We're going to feed it in the machine and do the same with this bend. And we're going to prove the math man wrong.

[00:11:39]40. 1 2 3. Got it.

[00:11:50]>> Remember that time you told me that uh you hired me to do it right and you said I wasn't going to do it right.

[00:11:54]>> He did it right. I give him that. It looks It looks 95% there.

[00:11:58]>> I'll take that.

[00:11:59]>> I would have done like 40. So, good job.

[00:12:02]>> 40 what?

[00:12:03]>> Okay.

[00:12:11]So, now that we have our main tube bent, and we're super stoked with the outcome, if you guys could not tell, what we need to do is notch this upright here to match this tubing so we can weld it nicely.

[00:12:26]All right, we don't want to mar up the mars too much. So, I'm going to take this rag, clamp it on the rag best I can anyway.

[00:12:52]Give me a second.

[00:12:58]Tube.

[00:13:00]That's a good height. I think that looks pretty good.

[00:13:30]Alrighty. So, now that we've got the basic drift trike frame together here, it's time to figure out the chain. So, of course, our chain's going to run from here to this rear sprocket here. What that means is we got to figure out the path our chain's going to run on, which is going to be straight from the sprocket. Obviously, that'll help us lay out the next parts of the frame so we know where that tubing can go without it hitting the chain. As well as we have to set our chain tension. If I had just weld the bearings as they are now, I might kind of mess myself up. Of course, the engine in the front is still floating. I don't have it welded down, so it's probably a little arbitrary, but I like to get the chain on first to figure out the last remaining supports for the tubing.

[00:14:08]So, with these kits, you get a chain that's oversized, and it has what's called a master link on it. So, this is a link that you can remove and then reconnect later with a shorter chain once you shorten the chain. Because the chain's oversized, we're got to use what's called a chain breaker. Cody brought this in for me today to do that.

[00:14:25]The way this works is we're going to clamp it onto a chain link and then I'm going to be able to press the center through with this punch to punch out the dowel in the middle of the chain to then break it apart and shorten it. Push this like that.

[00:14:39]There's my clip. Don't want to lose that here.

[00:14:49]We've had another problem. I'll go over the problem in a second. Let's pop the chain first.

[00:14:58]Now should just There we go.

[00:15:05]So, here's the issue. Um, the sprocket here is not the correct sprocket. The axle kit came with a 420 chain and 420 sprocket. From the back here, you can see it's 54 to 420 sprocket. Um, the front one is not a 420 sprocket. So, I'm going to order one and that'll be here probably tomorrow. So, we're just going to work around that for now and keep moving around it. I'm going to make sure the engine mounting has adjustability to change that chain tension anyway. Um, so I'll probably put slots in the engine mount. So, that'll be fine because as you can see, I got space here in the front, which is what I want. So, not a problem because once that correct sprocket's on, it's going to want to move the engine forward a little bit more to tighten up that chain. Not an issue to keep moving forward. However, I wish I had the right one now. That's an oversight. I thought the kit came with the 420 sprocket on the engine as well.

[00:15:51]It's just another one of those things you'll have with these bigger jumps.

[00:16:17]For now, I'm just tacking things together just enough that I can stand on its own weight and maybe be able to sit on it, but not so much we could drive it yet, just in case. Because when you have to go back and rework something, it's easier to cut one or two tacks instead of entire weld beads. So, let's set this up for success cuz I know something's going to happen at some point.

[00:16:39]I'm going to go ahead and cut these tails off now that we don't need them anymore.

[00:17:00]Now that the chain's located and we have the axle tacked in place, we have our basic trike frame figured out. What I'd like to do next is actually not do this brace across here. Instead, I kind of want to run the exhaust cuz I might have to change the angle of the engine for that. So, I'm going to block this up and not off the exhaust studs here. And then we'll go from there like an ogre.

[00:17:18]There's many layers to this. So, yep. That is not how I want it to be.

[00:17:35]So, the plan is to have the seat be pretty much exactly where this current exhaust pipe goes. This is a generic exhaust pipe for, you know, like an ATV or a uh dirt bike. So, I'm pretty much left with two options. One is I still go generally where it's going but to kind of bring it down a little bit. Or two, which I like more, which is to cut it down here. Cut it here. Bring this down sideways and bring the exhaust down along here underneath the axle. So the muffler is basically right here under the axle. Nice and tight up in here. I think it's what I'm going to want to do cuz that's going to keep this far enough away from the seat to keep the heat away from the driver as much as possible.

[00:18:10]Obviously, the rider is going to be directly on top of the engine, so it's probably still going to get hot anyway.

[00:18:15]But I think it's going to be a lot cooler with that muffler down along the ground. So, we're going to do that now.

[00:18:26]Should just slide right in here.

[00:18:54]There's supposed to be a set screw on this really crappy muffler. I couldn't find it. It's gone. So, I wanted to just tack it onto the pipe, but the pot metal did not want to weld well at all. You can see the crack there even. So, I'll figure that out later. But now we have the exhaust figured out. I think that looks really good. Um, so next is to figure out the tubing. It's going to run across here. It's going to start here, probably come up and come straight across through the chain and then back down here. I know it's going to be kind of a pain cuz it like, you know, disconnect the chain every single time you want to pull it off now. But I don't really think that we're going to have to remove the chain at all. This clip's going to be used against me in the future, I'm sure, when something breaks.

[00:19:29]But the idea is to use that tubing there to then mount the engine mount off of.

[00:19:32]So, we'll have to cut that in the plasma cutter. So, yeah. Let's uh cut some tubing. There might be enough tubing left here to be able to put in the bender and kind of just bend each snub down a little bit. I think I'm going to try it.

[00:20:04]Oh, that'll be perfect.

[00:20:06]I was going to the copit and it'll drop right down to where it needs to be.

[00:20:29]It seems this time that I uh should have consulted the math man because well I cut it a little too short. So like yeah it'll fit the side or hole saw oversized by you know 1/4 in could be the wrong size hole saw but this side um yeah it's sitting on the exhaust.

[00:20:47]You can kind of see here it's uh sitting on the exhaust and not reaching because I cut it too short. I thought I had it.

[00:20:53]Man, I thought I had it. And I think my other piece here is going to be too short to Yeah, it's going to be too short to bend. So, I guess we're going back to coping and uh welding it. Dang it. If I have to cut this and extend it.

[00:21:03]H I might be able to make this work.

[00:21:30]Heat. Heat.

[00:21:49]Heat. Heat.

[00:22:10]All right, we're really making progress now. We have our crossbar through. It worked out. I did a lot of feding, some cutting, some welding, some blending of those welds, so it looks nice and smooth. I saved it. So, up next is to figure out how to hang the engine from the frame. This engine has two mounting points. There's a bolt that goes through up here and there's a bolt that goes through down here. So, it's kind of like a banana shape between the two if you wanted to make a single mount, which is what I'm going to do. Little pro tip, use like a folder. Has a little bit of body to it. I'm going to cut it up to make the uh 2D profile of this mount.

[00:22:47]And then I'll show you how I'm going to put it in the computer and trace it for CAD.

[00:23:07]A little something like that should work just fine.

[00:23:12]Now, the secret is to take a photo of your flat 2D drawing next to a ruler.

[00:23:18]And then I'll import that photo into Fusion and scale it based off this ruler right here. Then all I have to do is just trace over top of it. And then we'll have our profile.

[00:23:58]Looking pretty good.

[00:24:01]Grind it and clean it up and put it on the bike.

[00:24:06]Got our holes lined up. obviously needs tacked in place. So, they're a little loose right now to where they need to actually be. Be like that, more like.

[00:24:14]Also, the lower mount down here needs a spacer behind it. So, I'm gonna stack some washers for that. She's ready to go. Well, that's how quick it can go with a CNC plasma table. Check ours out cuz they're worth your time. I found this aluminum sleeve laying around. Uh, it needs to be about 15 mm for the spacer, uh, which is way too much for washer stacking. So, I'm just going to cut this instead.

[00:24:36]A very precise machining going on here.

[00:24:57]Time get this thing unleashed.

[00:25:03]>> Yeah. You want to drop it down?

[00:25:05]>> Drop it down.

[00:25:05]>> See what it looks like.

[00:25:10]>> It's It'll bottom out on that. Watch it.

[00:25:12]>> Yeah, probably.

[00:25:15]>> Yeah, you guys should kind of reach.

[00:25:18]>> All right. So, you know, like any project, you have your speed bumps. Some of them are literal. You can pull lock.

[00:25:24]It wants to sit in the ground. Well, that's the brakes.

[00:25:26]>> Yeah. You can just rub the engine.

[00:25:29]>> Get air out of the pump. You know, >> the emergency brake. We have our three wheels in the ground with with the frame in the air, the engine suspended by the engine mount. Uh we need some parts.

[00:25:39]We're waiting on a sprocket for the engine so we can actually get the chain tension right. Um and also we ran into an issue where the front caster of the uh fork is a bit much. So when you go full lock, it actually drops the engine on the ground. You're good for about 80% of travel though. So I'm thinking what I'll do is I'll cut that front frame and just kind of angle it down a little bit more and bring it up. Honestly, not really that big of a deal because I haven't fully welded everything yet, which is why I mentioned earlier in the video that you don't fully weld everything until you're happy with how it's going to be. So, no biggie.

[00:26:13]So, as the trike sits right now, this front fork's sitting at approximately 43°.

[00:26:20]And we'd like to see that more like 45 46ish because what's happening is as you turn the handlebar, the wheels like flopping over because the caster is just too far back. Essentially, it'll be kind of unridable because it's going to throw you side to side in a way that's unpredictable and not conducive to a fun ride. So, you have to go back and adjust the rake. And to do that, I think the easiest solution is going to be pie cutting this front edge here to try to rock that downwards and weld it again.

[00:26:47]And then that should solve our problem.

[00:26:49]Heat.

[00:27:12]Hey, heat. Hey, heat.

[00:27:19]All right, check it out. About 47 now.

[00:27:24]That's much better. And I checked it. It does not flop too much side to side.

[00:27:27]Now, this should ride a lot better. And yes, I have some plates underneath the tires here to mimic the height of the plastic sleeves. But I'm super stoked how this looks. You can see now how high the engine is going to be off the ground with the spacers under the tires. So, I'd say we're pretty good. Now, we're on to the next step. Oh, yeah. And and of course, I do need to weld the underside of this um and cap that off. I will do all that at the end here once we get the mechanicals done. Like I mentioned earlier in the video, I want to make sure everything is functioning and running before I do all my final welding and grinding and capping in case something happens like I just did where I had to move the caster of the front. I think the next step's going to be actually mounting the rest of the mechanics. And we'll do the seat last so I can build the seat around any other components that may end up moving.

[00:28:11]What's left to do is I got the wiring to run, which is just a harness to plug in a couple things. Got the stator to deal with. We got to mount the battery somewhere. And of course, we got like the thumb throttle. It's going to go on the handlebars. Couple other small odds and ends. That should be pretty quick.

[00:28:26]But I think first I'm going to work on the fuel tank, which I want to be about right here. So, it's kind of like motorcycleesque. So, I need to figure out a way to mount this tab to the old part here. So, I probably cap that off and a tab to that that I can bolt this to. Um, I gota figure out the back side to support it. Maybe I'll just do another tab. It goes straight down to here. So, yeah, let's figure out the fuel first. 45 35.

[00:28:48]So, my absolute favorite part about the CNC table is that it has a shape library and pick out the shape I need. So, to cap that off, I probably want like a box with rounded corners. That would be 24.

[00:29:00]And then all I need to do is just put in my dimensions cuz parametric, it'll be what I need. And I won't have to go to the computer and draw it up. I can just do it all in the machine in a minute, which is so helpful.

[00:29:16]But just like that, I didn't need to do any CAD work. And now I have a plate I can count that off with. Easy peasy.

[00:29:33]So now I can mount this something like here.

[00:29:38]Super simple.

[00:29:46]There's our part.

[00:30:15]Heat. Heat.

[00:30:36]Oh yeah, that's solid. And it's like a, you know, like a motorcycle would be.

[00:30:41]The tank right above the uh engine. Pop the cap here. Fill the fuel. Let it all drain out cuz I don't have anything hooked up yet. I'll just uh hook that up really quick.

[00:30:52]That should do it. Feels done. Now it's time for electronics. I need to figure out where I'm going to mount the battery, these little modules, where I'm going to run the wiring. For those who do know me from other places, um you know that I'm not a wiring expert. In fact, I'm not great at it. So, uh I think the way I'm going to tackle this is I'm going to first just plug everything in and see where the leads can reach to. And then we're going to look at where I can mount the components. We'll probably have to plasma cut some parts out. I know I'm going to need to make a battery box for this to mount it to the frame.

[00:31:40]I think it's also worth noting in all this spaghetti, um, there's no wiring diagram included with the kit that we got. This all came with the engine. The harness, all the components came with the engine kit, and there's no diagram.

[00:31:53]I can maybe find one online if I look around, which I might have to do. Or I might phone a friend. Maybe I'll get Cody and or Johnny in here to help me with this. They're the small engine experts.

[00:32:01]>> Two yellows, a green, a blue, and the black and red.

[00:32:05]>> Right.

[00:32:21]It's funny. I was like, "Hey, I need you guys' help." And you guys are right behind the door.

[00:32:25]>> Here we are >> waiting to come in.

[00:32:27]>> All right.

[00:32:28]>> Does it look look pretty standard to you?

[00:32:30]>> It's looking standard enough. Standard enough to work.

[00:32:32]>> Well, I'm going to rely on you guys to figure out the wiring and then I'll just look good on camera by bolting it up at the end.

[00:32:41]spark.

[00:32:42]>> Come on, Johnny. Math man and electrician. A >> little bit of everything.

[00:32:46]>> What do you think? Let's splice these together.

[00:32:50]>> Not even a little.

[00:32:54]>> If it fits. Did you guys order the right size? It said it was for that this engine.

[00:33:01]>> Yeah, I'm just with you guys. and it really wouldn't go on. And then it finally did.

[00:33:16]So, they uh got a bunch of wiring done here. Got it really close, but couldn't get spark. I pulled up the diagram. They had to go to a meeting and I, you know, I jumped back on this and now now we got some spark.

[00:33:30]So, I'm not saying that I'm smarter than the engineers, but uh they did 99% of it. I just fiddled around. So, now we got to take all this and somehow fit it nicely on the trike.

[00:33:42]>> She's ready to run.

[00:33:43]>> Cody, what are you putting in my trike here?

[00:33:45]>> What is that?

[00:33:46]>> That's premix.

[00:33:47]>> Premix? This is a four- stroke.

[00:33:49]>> Pre- varnish.

[00:33:55]>> I swear it has spark, guys.

[00:33:56]>> I'm still skeptical. You know, it's pretty funny. It had spark when nobody was around.

[00:34:00]>> Yeah, convenient.

[00:34:02]>> Nobody can watch the footage.

[00:34:03]>> Jamie can confirm he saw it.

[00:34:06]>> I didn't see spark.

[00:34:07]>> All right, let's see if it fires.

[00:34:16]>> So, it's Thursday afternoon. Ryan's in his weekly marketing meeting. We really want to get this thing out for a ride.

[00:34:21]So, we're just going to quick weld a seat on it.

[00:34:30]All right.

[00:34:44]I like it.

[00:35:02]Heat. Heat.

[00:35:20]before Ryan actually makes the other seat. So, we just want to do a little mockup real quick and Cody's going to take care of that for us.

[00:35:48]What' you guys do? What? Wait, no.

[00:35:50]Seriously, did you put the bike seat on?

[00:35:53]>> Hey, man. Ready to go.

[00:36:08]Test drive one was good. Bike seat interesting choice, but it's kind of nice. You can kind of lean into it a little bit. Just don't fall off. Um, we had a wire pop out. And also, nobody put the the bolt in the shift selector, so it just kind of fell off. That was kind of cool. This is why you do a shakeddown, right?

[00:36:31]>> Were you stepping on the exhaust stick?

[00:36:32]Oh, >> why would you do that?

[00:36:34]>> I thought I was on the board. I was having too much fun.

[00:36:39]>> Oh my goodness, >> dude. That's fun.

[00:36:47]All right, so we had our little fun there with our test drive that was not really planned. They slapped this seat on here. We're going to rip this off and cut this post a little bit shorter and use the real seat that we actually bought to use in the project. It'll give us a lower center of gravity, which will also help with rear traction, I believe, getting us a little bit further back on the track. There's also a couple other odds and ends I'd like to do. Uh, the shifter is a pain where it's at, as well as we need some foot pegs cuz as Dave showed us, some people like to put their their feet on the exhaust apparently.

[00:37:15]So, we're going to need some foot pegs, especially once we have the seat back or lower. And of course, the wiring needs to be officially buttoned up. And we need a battery tray. Oh, and lastly, the exhaust. Because of the people stepping on it, everything else, it wants to, you know, touch the ground. We're going to have to add a little bracket here to keep it from sagging. So, I think the first thing we're going to do is figure out the battery tray and go from there.

[00:37:35]About 60, I would say. I think about right here would be pretty good. Like halfway down.

[00:37:48]Getting deja vu.

[00:37:55]I don't know who did the settings last on that, but that was super fast.

[00:37:58]However, guess that was right because there's like barely any slack in this thing. Heck yeah.

[00:38:08]Save some space here.

[00:38:16]There we go.

[00:38:21]Like that. And that'll get welded right there. Steady.

[00:38:40]Bam.

[00:38:42]If you're wondering, yeah, I did spend a good bit of time making a nice metal frame, but we're still going to zip tie inside this as well because you can cut a zip tie and replace it every time you need to pull the battery out, which would be hopefully never.

[00:38:58]I'll cut out a plate here that hangs out back. I can bolt this to. And then I'm also going to make a little chain guard because um if the chain ever comes off again, but you're at like full bore, you don't want to get wrapped by that chain cuz the seat's not going to stop, I don't think, entirely. It's pretty thin sheet metal, so it'll look a little bit like There you go. That should do it. Now we have a base plate to put the seat on. I gusseted it to this vertical tubing. I also added in this sick chain guard here. And of course, while I was at it, I also welded some more to get the engine mounts welded in cuz I was on a welding spree. Let's get the seat on here quick and see how she really looks.

[00:39:40]Yeah, that looks a lot cooler than the uh bike seat did. Now that we got that laid out, let's get this thing down on the floor and I'm going to modify the shifter and get it to a good spot and also figure out the foot pegs. Then we're nearly done.

[00:40:04]like that.

[00:40:17]So now doesn't like that.

[00:40:22]That's better. All right. After spending some time with it, I think she's ready to be torn apart and bead blasted so that we can then powder coat it and get it to the final finish that we want. Let me show you what we ended up with. She's looking pretty. We got some foot braces here. I welded down through here. I'm going to grind that down, make it look pretty. We extended the shifter so you can actually use it.

[00:40:43]Also added a couple small things like a tab here to mount the coil to when I'm ready to bolt that down. The little things that'll really button up this project. So now it's time to take it all apart. wirehe it, grind it, put it in the blasting cabinet and get it ready for powder coat.

[00:41:04]Yeah, that was tight.

[00:41:13]There's a builder. I think >> he's like, "Are you ready?" I'm like, "Yeah." I drop it immediately.

[00:41:25]>> She's a lot smaller once you have everything removed from it. So, this is everything we fabricated sands, you know, the neck right here. But everything down here is what we made and I'm pretty happy with it.

[00:42:01]The frame's all ready to go in the blasting cabinet. Everybody in this room doubts me that it'll fit in the cabinet, which means it probably won't fit in the cabinet, but I believe it will. So, let's see if it fits. I can check. I might have to go to the end, honestly.

[00:42:19]I would just go outside with a blast out of a bucket and a 5gallon jug.

[00:42:23]>> All right. All right.

[00:42:28]>> This is not fun.

[00:43:10]Don't breathe this. Here's a little cleaning the hose pro tip. Take a little uh ear plug, stuff it in there, and point it to where no one's standing.

[00:43:43]And now for the scariest part.

[00:43:50]Don't breathe that either.

[00:43:53]This is not what we wanted.

[00:43:55]This is a translucent red metallic. I wanted a more vibrant red. Flide is since we're using the 40 kovolt system, we can actually do multiple coats of powder coating. So, we're going to go grab some brighter red and we're going to top coat this, which won't be much of an issue. So, we can save it.

[00:44:34]Woo! It's hot. That looks way better.

[00:44:37]Way better. I will allow that.

[00:44:49]All right, she's all powdered. I'm going to save you guys some time. We're going to assemble it real quick.

[00:44:55]>> It didn't work. Let's Let's try that again.

[00:44:59]Huh? Oh, there it is.

[00:45:19]Let's ride. You happy now, Dave? Is that what you wanted?

[00:45:28]Come on.

[00:45:51]Heat.

[00:45:52]Heat.

[00:46:10]Heat.

[00:46:34]Yeah.

[00:46:38]>> Hot.

[00:46:38]>> Hot. Little bit of road rash on it, too.

[00:46:41]Look at that.

[00:46:43]>> I got a little too ballsy going. It's like downhill on the way back. And I uh I was like, "Oh, I'm going a little fast for just having a front brake.