one for the trike crowd - transmission question

[erizo]

just out of interest, do any of you trike riders know of a way of fitting a short automatic transmission (if it has to be single speed, no problem) to a ford v-6 cologne lump?

i was looking at an exploded diagram of the auto box and wondered if it was possible to do away with the gearbox after the torque converter.

just playing with ideas.......

[HAGGISBIKER]

Hi mate have one of the old mags someplace showing a short single seat trike using the Ford v6...he kept it short by not running a gearbox.

It was black with huge yellow wheels...I will look for mag over next few days and scan it for you to see trike and spec.

[rob]

i've got a drawing somewhere of a ford v6 conversion that uses the bell housing, clutch and output shaft from a manual box to make a very short single speed trike. (basically the dif fixed to the bell housing).i dunno much about auto-boxes, but thats gotta be easier than trying to modify an auto, if its a stumpy trike you want.

[rob]

yeh, thats the one. here tis......
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g303/flumpkins/IMAGE0006.jpg

[erizo]

cheers rob!

i have seen a couple of conversions using the clutch after the bellhousing on ford lumps, but they were left permenently in gear with no neutral which was why i was thinking about the possibilities of the torque converter.

i´m bouncing ideas around for using a cologne lump in a solo using a shaftie bevel box to turn the drive 90º for a sprocket mount to clear the rear wheel.

it´s currently a feasability study as opposed to a concrete `i´m gonna do it´ type of thing.

[rob]

you do know how heavy those cologne lumps are??? :eek:
cast iron block etc, i think i'm right in saying that the rover 3.5 is about the same weight, if not lighter?? the japs make some groovy car motors nowadays, mazda do a 1.8 ally v6, i think its in the top-of the-range mx5 or something.

[erizo]

you do know how heavy those cologne lumps are??? :eek:
cast iron block etc, i think i'm right in saying that the rover 3.5 is about the same weight, if not lighter?? the japs make some groovy car motors nowadays, mazda do a 1.8 ally v6, i think its in the top-of the-range mx5 or something.

i thought the cologne lumps were ally, and the essex lumps cast iron. ah well, live and learn :D

weight isn´t really an object in this pipe dream. the reason i was playing with the idea of the cologne lump was that they are dirt cheap with cheap spares ( a primary concern), compact for the given capacity, and with the block painted and other bits cleaned up, it´s not a bad looking engine.

if you´ve got suggestions for cheap, good looking, compact car engines of 2+ltr, i´m all ears

[rob]

essex/cologne, aah, not sure.......
sure someone on here will tho......
honda and toyota both do tidy looking ally DOHC/OHC v6's.
rover stirling, (had one, lovely motor), vitesse, 827 all use the honda v6 2.7. i think the vitesse is turboed tho.

[Blackjack]

The Essex is the mentally heavy one. The 302 (Not the Boss lightweight one, just the ordinary one) Ford V8 is only 40lbs heavier fully dressed. An Essex lump is heavy enough to break 13 bones in your foot if it hits the bulkhead you've got your foot against...

This I know for a fact. :D

I'm pretty sure that the torque convertor on an auto box relies on a pump which is inside the box itself. So you cant just dump the box and run the torque convertor.

However, you can shorten the tail shaft on the box, but it's not going to be cheap.....

You could modify the pressure plate on a manual clutch to make it centrifugal and stuff on overdrive onto it for a two speed box with clutchless changes. Kind of make it a huge twist and go scooter sort of thing.

The latter is probably the easier of the two, but it still doesn't give you a neutral.

BUT........

You could still add an overcentre lever to the centrifugally operated clutch to keep it from engaging I suppose.....

[tone]

essex/cologne, aah, not sure.......
sure someone on here will tho......
honda and toyota both do tidy looking ally DOHC/OHC v6's.
rover stirling, (had one, lovely motor), vitesse, 827 all use the honda v6 2.7. i think the vitesse is turboed tho.

The toyota Camry is 3 litre fuel injected Twin cam tranverse engine.
It is a really short from the wheels to front of the engine.
And you can get them cheap.they lose money like crazy.
So you would have a couple of options.
Use it as a rear mounted engine with a auto box(mostly standard)
Or just use the engine,
tone

[devon-tony]

cant remember what sort of size they are, but what about using a volvo trans axle.

we roughed a trike up years ago with rover V8 lump 4.1L, auto box and then the volvo transaxle as well, the theory was that we could just really play with some serious acceleration, and then still cruise at decent speed

sadly it all ended in tears as we destroyed it, but that was probably more to do with the Wade charger sat on top, and the fact we were hammering it up and down unmade roads!!

[devon-tony]

oh anohter suggestion, the vauxhall V6 engines are quite good, compact (they will fit in a corsa, I know I did one)

the wiring is fairly simple as well, and with all the covers etc on them they dont look too bad an engine