Jalopy Joe

[Infiltrator]

Hi guys and girls, names Jody, been a long time lurker and finally decided to join.

Im from Cape Town, South Africa, and have a love for all things mechanical....especially bicycles.
Ive built, or attempted, two builds to date but neglected to follow some basic bicycle mechanics
Il post pics of the last bike i built but bear in mind, I can't really weld but my father owns a basic oil cooled arc welder and a few other power tools... i just decide to try my hand at a build seeing that i couldn't afford to purchase what i wanted.

1st build

1st attempt at ratting, basic iron cross.

fitted

me at our monthly moonlight mass, late night ride through the city every full moon.

the lowrider is parked due to some design faults, i take it as a learning experience rather than failure.
Comments are welcome, just be nice lol.

thanks for looking.

 

[mitchelangelo]

That is a couple of awesome rides! Don't give up..you will get the kinks worked out of them. :wink:

 

[raggedjim]

Nice bikes, keep it up!

Rg

 

[deven_science]

I like 'em! Burritos (what some call that long, low, homemade style of bike) are always better when they look like they shouldn't actually work. Those are pretty cool.

 

[Sphinx]

You're doing great.Keep working with what you can afford and find. You seem to be a bright young man and we're cheering for you.

 

[Infiltrator]

Thanks for the replies gents, much appreciated.

I like 'em! Burritos (what some call that long, low, homemade style of bike) are always better when they look like they shouldn't actually work. Those are pretty cool.

If that's what you call em, Burritos FTW!!!
the bicycle scene is relatively small my side so people hardly see or build these styles, i always get crap about my ride height and overall length being unconventional.
im rolling on 27" wheels with 27 1/4" cheapo tires i got off a donor frame...axle to axle the bikes about 2.4 meters(7.2ft or 86.6inches) long and ground clearance is from 25mm-18mm ( 0.984-0.7086 inches) with a downward force of +- 650N-700N before bottoming out completely.

You're doing great.Keep working with what you can afford and find. You seem to be a bright young man and we're cheering for you.

Thanks man, it's good to get some positive feedback from people that's thousands of miles away, especially with my home town critics nit picking every detail of an amateur build.
for this build it cost me R800-R1000+(Zar) , with the exchange rate of say R9(Zar) to the dollar it's roughly $120.
An entry level Raleigh mountain bike costs about R850(Zar), Schwinn beach cruisers we looking at 3k+ for 2nd hand, that's like $300+ for a used bicycle in avg condition.

 

[Sphinx]

Ignore the hometown critics. Let the negative roll off of you like rain hitting a stone statue. This site will see you through. If you stick to you're positive beliefs, I have no doubt you are and will be a great man.The people of your country have endured many hardships. I don't know much of South Africa's history, but, I do know about Steven Biko and Nelson Mandela.

 

[Bigcam59]

Nice work! Don't let the critics keep you down, there's guys in the states that'd be proud to ride with you!
If you ever make it to Jersey, give the Devils a ring and we'll hit Philly in style : )

 

[Infiltrator]

Ignore the hometown critics. Let the negative roll off of you like rain hitting a stone statue. This site will see you through. If you stick to you're positive beliefs, I have no doubt you are and will be a great man.The people of your country have endured many hardships. I don't know much of South Africa's history, but, I do know about Steven Biko and Nelson Mandela.

It's mainly people with no technical knowledge that question my concepts, i think they look for faults just so they can comment... i usually throw some technical terms around and refer them to some mech engineering theory to shut them up.

Don't worry, most people born after the 80's in SA don't know the history either... To them it's just history.
Il try and upload some pics so you guys can get a little taste of what the countries like, I got a decent view of Table Mountain from my room so il try and get a nice shot of that and some other city life.

Nice work! Don't let the critics keep you down, there's guys in the states that'd be proud to ride with you!
If you ever make it to Jersey, give the Devils a ring and we'll hit Philly in style : )

Thanks man, much appreciated... will keep that offer in mind, got family in the states, Sacramento and some other place i can't remember right now lol.
I think they on opposite ends of the map though, SF>NY if im not mistaken??? could always book a flight over and do some proper traveling.

 

[deven_science]

Hey, if you are ever are in Sacramento, myself and any others on this site are here. We could always hook up for a ride. I know I've got a few spare bikes that you could ride.

 

[Infiltrator]

Some randoms

Hout bay or houtbaai in afrikaans, hout means wood in english and baai means bay.
Afrikaans is something similar to Dutch, we have 11 official languages and in Cape town most people speak English and Afrikaans...

Table mountain from my room, snapped this at 9am this morning.... my previous post was at 8:15-8:30am.
Doesn't really give the table top effect from this side, got a coupon for a cable car ride to the top of the mountain so il snap some better pics as soon as i do that.

Sun setting behind the mountain, just love this red sky moments...

My DIY 3in1 fire place, coal stove and oven.
It's 2 old oil drums, this is just a prototype i threw together to test the waters... so far it's been serving me well, i use it to braai(pronounced br eye) aka barbeque during summer and let it stand in front of my sliding door during winter, provided it's not raining cats and dogs...

back to bikes

this is the brake setup i done on the bike in the 1st pic, something like the foot brake from the motorcycles, hate cables going to the handle bars.

design failure

changed the style of the bars, had no stiffener in the 1st set and it got bent out of shape so i chopped it and went with this...

telephone cable for grip and walking stick stoppers for end caps, courtesy of my grandfather...

thanks for looking.

 

[deven_science]

design failure

I love your bike, and it's cool of you to post pics of your city, but I've gotta say, those are some ugly, structurally unsound welds. You need to get in more welding practice. Get your welding skills up to the same level as your design skills, and they'll be some beautiful beads.

 

[Infiltrator]

design failure

I love your bike, and it's cool of you to post pics of your city, but I've gotta say, those are some ugly, structurally unsound welds. You need to get in more welding practice. Get your welding skills up to the same level as your design skills, and they'll be some beautiful beads.

LOL!!! :mrgreen:
Those welds are all lazy mans repairs on a part that should have been replaced, i just pooled over the old welds so it could be mobile....that tube isn't even connected to the frame anymore, has so much chicken poo that you can't see it's come apart. lasted long enough for me to get my ride in and make it back home, bike layed frame just as i got into my street and has been standing ever since then.

il probably do the repairs over the weekend, there's another moonlightmass event the 28th so im forced to, will clean the bike up a bit and post new pics after the repairs.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

One of my favorite burritos! Nice design skills!

How does it ride? (When the welds are holding together!) Are the design flaws you mentioned in the way it rides or the way it holds together?

Luke.

 

[Infiltrator]

One of my favorite burritos! Nice design skills!

How does it ride? (When the welds are holding together!) Are the design flaws you mentioned in the way it rides or the way it holds together?

Luke.

Thanks man, much appreciated.

the bike feels like a normal cruiser, the only real problem i have while riding is gauging how much i can turn the handle bars without laying frame, that's obviously due to a design fault.
The ride is a bit heavy on an incline because i used a 5speed cassette without a jockey and just left some slack in the chain so it can run between a couple of low gears, fairly decent but nothing to write home about.
i can set how soft i want the ride but that has it's downfall, the softer it's set the less downward force it can hold before bottoming out.
im 65kg and that's +- 650N, anything higher than that and the bike will stall at every high spot in the road.... every millimeter counts.

Faults:
1) the back of the frame is off, rear wheel is not mounted evenly in the rear bracket because the bends are off, this means the bike tends to crab if the wheel isn't in the sweet spot.
2) the rear sways slightly as you pedal, i think i need to attach a bar from the seat post to the rear brackets but i don't want to spoil the lines i have in the rear.... though i just got an idea while typing this.
3) rake and trail and the angle of the neck tube.... only learnt about rake and trail after i built this bike so naturally the neck angle would be out because i used that to lower the front of the bike instead of a springer fork.
my neck tube angle is roughly 42-47 degrees, iv read somewhere that the limit or most bikes go to a max of 38degrees... if i turn past a certain point the bike lays frame, had a major wipe out once while taking a corner.

the bulk of the problems come from the swaying rear and poor design in the front... i managed to shear the neck tube in two and have had chunks of steel ripped out of it on a few occasions. to date, all the weld failures have occurred in one specific area so im assuming it's due to the above reasons.

I named it jalopy joe for a reason, this bike is the 99 problems Jay-z was talking about.
Im looking at building another burrito instead of repairing my current one, still undecided but the odds are weighing up against jalopy joe.

Jody.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

With your front end rake/trail issue, an idea is to keep your current rake but to bend/extend your forks forward to the wheel, moving the wheel forward in relation to the headtube line. This will change your trail issue a fair bit. The ideal trail from what I understand is roughly 2 inches between where the headtube angle would hit the ground and the axle centreline.

If that is a bit hard to understand, its probably the way I tried to explain it... I could draw a diagram if you need it...

Luke.

Edit: Found a diagram on wiki, added some lines in paint...

563px-Bicycle_dimensions_svg by LukeTheJoker, on Flickr
The red lines is your forks, you can see how the extension forward to the wheel allows the trail to still be where it should be even with the added rake... Or at least that is the way I understand it...

Luke.

 

[Infiltrator]

With your front end rake/trail issue, an idea is to keep your current rake but to bend/extend your forks forward to the wheel, moving the wheel forward in relation to the headtube line. This will change your trail issue a fair bit. The ideal trail from what I understand is roughly 2 inches between where the headtube angle would hit the ground and the axle centreline.

If that is a bit hard to understand, its probably the way I tried to explain it... I could draw a diagram if you need it...

Luke.

Edit: Found a diagram on wiki, added some lines in paint...

563px-Bicycle_dimensions_svg by LukeTheJoker, on Flickr
The red lines is your forks, you can see how the extension forward to the wheel allows the trail to still be where it should be even with the added rake... Or at least that is the way I understand it...

Luke.

I see the concept but don't know how it will affect the steering and geometry...for example, is rake a constant and trail a variation?
from what i understand the rake is the distance from the center line of the neck tube to the center of the fork brackets or wheel axle, this would mean some forks have natural rake or zero rake???
the trail is the part that's getting me confused, i need to know the relation between height and trail, how to calculate good trail but maintain X ride height.
my ride height depends on the neck tube angle and the 27" wheels, without that combo the frame will just bottom out.
if i change the trail will i increase or decrease my ride height?
if i just extend the front wheel further forward, keeping the same horizontal level, would i have changed the trail but kept rake and ride height?

I wanted to pivot the neck tube instead of having it pivot on the fork but i need a clearer picture of the rake and trail relationship and how it changes ride height.

these are the illustrations i found when doing research, i need to see how the frame and fork function together to understand it better.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

A lot of the information on your diagrams is about rake and trail changes with a springer fork, not something your dealing with here... If you want to know how to set up for springers, I am not the guy to talk to, I would not have a clue!!! In that case I tend to just try things and see if it works...

if i just extend the front wheel further forward, keeping the same horizontal level, would i have changed the trail but kept rake and ride height?

With your bike, I am pretty sure this method will fix it. Allowing you to keep your laid out rake and low ride height, but fix your front wheel flop, that is causing it to bottom out when turning.

Hope that helps, that pretty much exhausts my knowledge of rake/trail, aside from that I just try things and see if they work...

Luke.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Did a quick mock up on your photo...

2012-09-19-1018_zps3d469044 by LukeTheJoker, on Flickr

Looks like it would need to go forward about 10 to 14 inches? 250mm-350mm? Only guessing here...

In my opinion, that would make it look even better! 8)

Your other option would be to reduce your rake, this is probably more practical, but wont look as good. If practicality is what you were after, I am guessing you would not have modified the bike originally though!!! :lol:

Luke.

Edit: Anyone with more knowledge on rake/trail want to say something?

 

[Infiltrator]

Did a quick mock up on your photo...

2012-09-19-1018_zps3d469044 by LukeTheJoker, on Flickr

Looks like it would need to go forward about 10 to 14 inches? 250mm-350mm? Only guessing here...

In my opinion, that would make it look even better! 8)

Your other option would be to reduce your rake, this is probably more practical, but wont look as good. If practicality is what you were after, I am guessing you would not have modified the bike originally though!!! :lol:

Luke.

im feeling the extra stretch, your mock up just made things much clearer, might do something similar to the rear bends for the front.

on a side note, i checked your thread, epic build you got going.... love the wheel idea, was thinking of something similar but im a bit worried about the weight and power one will need to pedal.