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Posted by : Ray Wakefield - Date: 14 Aug 2002 at 16:03

The dragster style steering wheel was cut from 6mm alloy plate and the steering wheel boss machined from a now redundant hub of the scooter. Nothing gets wasted in this workshop! For reasons of safety, the steering rod is cranked to a bracket just beneath the skin of the body near the pedal box. From here it runs at a slight angle through the aforementioned tube to a point just above the right hand front suspension mounting. This will prevent the driver getting speared in the unlikely event of a front end collision.

The engine just fits.	The steering linkage and front swing arm posed a few problems. The drawings were far from complete, and when I asked for further enlightenment from England I was told that the missing bits were made up as they went along, and no drawings were available. A verbal description wasn't much more help, but after a great deal of headscratching we decided to do what we could from the drawings and more frozen video frames, and fill in the missing knowledge by inspiration and intuition.
General view of 'trainer wheel' and its suspension.	The lack of clear drawings of this most essential part of the machine put our progress back by a couple of days, but once we had all the bits fabricated came the great moment of truth. Would we get bump steer?
Front end showing sand box Steering drop arm and front swing arm.	As we had only five degrees of steering lock each side of the straight-ahead position, and a total steering wheel movement of 18° each way, even the slightest amount of bump steer would be disastrous.
Steering wheel. Gear lever on left.	With everything bolted in place we gingerly moved the swing arm through its intended arc of travel. The steering wheel did not budge. We had got it right. We thought we had earned a celebratory ale, so it was off to "The Duck" for a swift half!