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A project log for Woody the Electric Four Passenger Bicycle

Woody is a scratch built quad wheel bicycle with four passenger capacity, with electric power to assist pedaling.

john-guyJohn Guy 10/16/2023 at 13:050 Comments

This weekend was spent mostly welding. First though, I needed to get to the bottom of the bike. I bought a pair of pulleys and rope. I thought I was getting nylon rope, but it is poly propylene. Oh well.

A pair of cleats attached to the ceiling allow me to raise the bike to a comfortable working height. In below picture, the bike is also rotated about 90°. Note in this picture along square tube is clamped to the frame at the seat top to hold the bike in this position. There's also an old rug covering the lower wheel to prevent sparks and dust from messing with tire, chain, and derailleur. 

Next up the structure for mounting the running boards was cut, welded together, then to the frame. The front sprocket is about 1/16" proud of the top surface, s a bit of the wood running board will be hogged out here.

I tried something and I guess it worked, but don't try this without ventilation for sure. I wanted to weld a plate which needed to be flat horizontally, but the tube to which it is welded is inclined about 10°. So I cut a bit of welding rod and used CYA glue (cyanoacrylate, or Crazy Glue) to hold it in place while the plate was welded. I definitely could smell the glue burning as the tubes heated up. 

Perhaps a kinder/gentler was of doing this is to use masking tape. Below are the zig zag 1/2" square tubes used to reinforce the two 3/4" main tubes. It ends up masking tape worked well here, and did not catch on fire provided I used a small tack weld. Also on the very right edge of the picture a rusty piece of tubing is clamped to the frame to prevent swinging on the pulley ropes.

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