Well, over the weekend, I made some adjustments to the trike. I lengthened it by about 1.5 mm. I meant to only do 1mm, but the adjustment is a bit fiddly. I certainly felt I was getting better extension of my legs and was riding faster, though I am not sure how much of that is down to the three days of not riding. Still I feel that it is improved. At higher speeds, up around the 40kmh mark, I now feel that the extension is too far, so maybe I will try something in the middle. Anyway I will leave it the way that it is for a while.
I also adjusted the steering. This turned out to be much easier than I expected. There was just one locking nut to loosen and the bolt on the king pin to remove. Not really knowing what I was doing I only adjusted it in by 1/2 of a turn. The man who looked after racing cars on the ride had said do one turn at a time. The steering certainly felt tighter and a low speeds it felt much more stable. But when I got up to high speeds going down hill it was still a bit wobbly, though better than before. So I plan to modify the steering by half a turn for some time until I get it stable. However, at the moment I am unsure how I will tell if I have gone too far.
Many people say: he fucking didn’t know a thing’
Man: that’s all we know, he still won’t!
Nab: because of that you thought he knew that part
Steering adjustment on a GT3 should be done by measurement of the wheel centre distances. A little bit of toe in works well for me and limits tyre scrub which can slow you down and wear tyres quickly. Place the trike on a level surface with room to roll forward 1/2 a revolution of the wheels. Load the seat with weight equal to your own weight, you can sit and have someone else do measurements. With the steering straight ahead measure the distance from the centre of one tyre to the centre of the other tyre at the 90 degree rear position, that is the point of the tyres that is furthest to the rear. Mark the point with a pen or chalk. Roll the trike forward until the same points are at the 90 degree point facing forward. Check the measurement. The second should be a couple of mm less than the first. Adjust and repeat until you have 1 to 3 mm toe in.
Fred
Hi, I was going to do the measurement thingy. I even took the tape measure. Taking the mudgards off is not too difficult. But the seat was in the way. It only just occurred to me that I can take the seat off to. I guess at the time I was too worried about dismantling the steering to be thinking about other things. I’ll try again tonight if I have time. I might even take down some spare wood to use to do the marking.