Professional Documents
Culture Documents
W ARTIME re-
strictions on
manufacturing
and selling have made
it almost impossible to
ing, which is stronger
and lighter than other
tubing, and it takes a
lot of abuse. I used it,
also, because I had a
buy a new motor- lot of it on hand. Tub-
driven scooter. Despite ing of this kind, often
the great need of many discarded, can be had
"production soldiers" at almost any airport.
for some means of Thin wall conduit, for
rapid transportation to electrical wiring, could
and from work, an un- be used, but the air-
used scooter is seldom craft tubing is better.
to be had nowadays. The steering shaft
And as for a used mo- (see 1 in Figs. 1 and
tor scooter, well, I have 2) was turned out of
heard of one that orig- 1" round steel so as to
inally sold for $111 and fit the Ford V-8 gen-
which was recently re-
sold for $195 despite its
used condition. Both f a t h e r and son
So, do not scold me Johnny use the motor-
for taking some pride scootei. L o w e r picture
shows the placing of the
in the fact that I de- cushioned seat w h i c h
signed and built my makes riding easy and
own motor-scooter out comfortable.
erator bearings (marked 2 in Fig. 2). Then I a flat surface. I used the top of my work-bench
made the three plates (3 in Fig. 2) which sup- to mark it out. I used the same brake drum to
port the shaft. These were made of 1/8" flat steel shape the four pieces of tubing (7 in Fig. 1), the
which can be obtained in almost any junk yard. front ends of which were laid out with a block
Figure 3 shows the detail of the fork support cut to 65 degrees, to hold the pieces in position.
plate. The fork bearing support (8 in Figs. 1 and 2)
I used a Ford Model A brake drum for shaping was made out of 1-1/2" by 1/16" wall tubing, or
the fork (4 in Fig. 1) made of 7/8" tubing. I
welded on the two bushings for the front axle
(5 in Fig. 1) and used a spacer and a bolt for
the lower spacing of the fork and one of the
plates for the upper spacing (6 in Fig. 1). I
brazed the lower plate in place on each tube of
the fork. Then I placed the second plate (to
support the shaft) over the tubes and brazed it
to the lower plate just 1/8" above the lower plate.
The third plate was also set 1/8" above the middle
plate. That completed the lower part of the
front fork.
The rest of the frame (Fig. 5) was laid out on
FIGURE 5. Here
is shown t h e BRAKE PEDAL'
plan of the hori-
zontal f r a m e
r u n n i n g from
wheel to wheel.
Again welding
was u s e d t o
p r o v i d e ade-
quate assembly
and strength to
the parts.
wise with a hack saw.
The upper half goes
over the bicycle han-
dle b a r s . B a n d s
around t h e tubing
piece take the bolts
and nuts which are
tightened to hold the
bars in position. I
picked up a used pair
of handle bars. They
had to be cut and
welded, to take out
the double curve and
then come s t r a i g h t
back. So there was
no point to buying a
new pair.
The top part of the
fork t e l e s c o p e s the
steering shaft (38 in
Fig. 2) and is also
used as the bearing
adjustment. A small
round g u s s e t 1/8"
thick is welded above
and below.
The seat frame (11
in Fig. 1) was made
of 1/2" thin wall con-
duit formed on the
same b r a k e d r u m
used for the other
tubing work. It was
welded in place. I
welded gussets across
the corners (12 in
Fig. 1) to hold the
cowling f a s t e n e r s
which I bought at an
airport for about a
dime apiece. I ob-
tained the scat (13 in
Fig. 1) from a motor-
cycle shop. It had
been used on the rear
carrier of a motor-
cycle. The seat is
hinged at the front to
gain access to the
engine.
For power I used
a 1/2 hp. Briggs and
conduit, which will just take the generator bear- Stratton engine originally made for a washing
ings without much machine work. I telescoped machine. It runs the scooter at about 18 m.p.h.
a piece of tubing in the bottom and on the top More speed would be much better. The scooter
pressed the bearing race into position in the tub- could take up to 1-1/2 hp. motor which would then
ing and tack welded it. give a traveling speed of 35-40 m.p.h. The motor
The entire upper part of the fork (9 in Fig. 2) must be placed to turn in the right direction.
was made of 3/4" o.d. wall tubing which telescoped The pulley (14 in Fig. 1) I made up of two
the 7/8" wall tubing of which the lower part of 2-1/2" V-pulleys which I cut in half and adjusted
the fork was made. by moving the sides closer together or farther
To the top ends of the two side pieces of 3/4" apart, which makes (he pulley smaller or larger.
wall tubing. I welded a cross piece of tubing (10 In dirt or snow the scooter has more power with
in Fig. 4) and then sawed that in half length- the smaller pulley. The pulley was fastened on
(18 in Fig. 6). The whole assembly
FIGURE 4. Top of fork and is hinged on the rear axle tube.
handle bars. Old pair of
handle bars was cut, and To adjust the tension I used a Ford
parts rewelded, to get shape valve spring to tighten it and for
shown in the pictures of the release the pedal turns over cen-
father and son.
ter and compresses the spring and
releases the tension on the belt. The
clutch release pedal (17 in Fig. 1) is
laid out so that with the pedal it
passes over center and holds the
spring compressed. The sprocket
was turned to fit a small shoulder
to fit in the hub (19 in Fig. 6) and
serves as a bearing retainer on the
left-hand side of the wheel.