Tribute to my dad.... The most awesome person I ever knew..

This was my dads trailer he pulled behind all his trikes. He actually purchased it from the Jack Daniels store in Lynchburg. It wasn't even for sale. It was being used as a display for their store. After basically forcing the poor guy that was their to call his manager they came to an agreed price. Right then i knew that purchase was going to mean work for me. I had to wire his trike for trailer lights in the parking lot and everything had to work perfect! And it was hottttt!

Years later dad passed away in March of 2008. He was a big guy at 6'8 and 425 pounds. And he didnt feel very well the last few years of his life. But if you mentioned going somewhere on a bike he would somehow make it. I always respected him and always feared him at the same time. It was always the good kind of fear. (I think)

Anyway,,, I just laid the oak floor back down on the trailer. The original wood had swelled a bit on the edges. And the trailer needed cleaning up badly. Its getting sanded and lots of Polyurethane to make it shine again. I put two new tires and rims on it also. New hardware is also going onto it. All shiny brass stuff. It will be a jewel again for someone. And it will need a good home when I'm finished with it.

Here are some pics of my dad and his grave marker. I took a picture of him on his first trike at Cheha Mountain. This picture was the one I later had waterjet etched onto his grave marker. One things for sure...... I wish he was still here to go and ride today.

Dad was a diabetic and he couldn't feel his feet very well. So one morning I got up and used a pneumatic cylinder to move the gear lever. I had used pneumatic cylinders at the lumber yard on equipment so I had all the parts. I took a small oxygen cylinder and a small 12volt compressor and put a pressure regulator switch inline with the power wire feeding it. It all fit neatly in the bottom of his right saddle bag. I popped the right switch housing apart and put 2 tiny microswitches in the houseing to allow him to trigger a up and downshift. I mounted the two way cylinder so that it had enough travel in both directions to push the gear lever up and down. I used two momentary acting pneumatic solenoids to trigger the cylinder each way. I also had a variable pressure regulator in line with the shifter solenoids. I could fine tune the shifts with that adjustment. He could actually control how hard the shift was by lightly bumping the switch so he could hit neutral. Today I would just call up one of the electric quick shifter companies but they were not really out on the market when I did this.

He was pretty happy to not have to move his feet.

We might do something along those lines. I need to finish up some detail work on it...