HEAVY METAL: The Re-Cycle

[SpyGuy]

Hello, gents .... I've been hanging out on this forum for a bit, mainly jus lurking and taking notes, and I thought I would share a little project I've been working on.

First off, a bit about me: My name is Bill, and I'm from the States (Tucson, Arizona, to be exact). I've recently gotten into MIG welding last year, mainly doing small projects such as critters, flowers, and bolt-on parts for several of my pocketbikes (oh, yeah, I ride and repair those, too). I decided that it was time to quit fooling around, and really test my skills on something different.

Thus, the Re-Cycle.....

This is a custom-built pocketbike I recently finished. The thing is, it's not just any pocketbike. The Re-Cycle is completely made from recycled metals and scrap, the only "bought" parts being the drivetrain and wheels. It's also smaller than a "standard" pocketbike by at least a third.

Wheelbase: 28"
Height:
-Top of handlebars: 20"
-Seat: 15"
-Top of head tube: between 12"-13"
Engine: 47cc pocketbike engine with CVT (continuous variable transmission)
Wheels: 4" goped wheels

Follow along, and I'll walk you through the build .... By the way, from start to finish took about a month and a half, mostly getting parts and pieces.

 

[SpyGuy]

Well, here we are at the beginning. I had decided to make the frame and forks from tire irons, and miscellaneous scrap metal that I had laying around. The engine mount is 3/8" plate. Two tire irons were welded together at the heads to form the front end of the frame. with the engine plate acting as a spacer between the two. Width was determined by placing the rear wheel and mounts temporarily on the irons before clamping everything down to be welded.

 

[SpyGuy]

Here's the rear wheel mounts - actually training wheel mounts, with the slots cut in for axle adjustment using a 4" angle grinder. Yes, I know the welds don't look great at this point, but they were cleaned up and look much nicer now. That's what an untouched mount looks like in between the frame rails.

So, on to making the top half of the frame. Two more tire irans were welded on, after filling the ends with - what else? car lugnuts - and welded together onto the head tube. **Note: the head tube in earlier photos was a piece of water pipe with two sleeves over it. This setup did not work well, and after several hours of frustration and broken welds (not to mention some colorful and creative language) out came the cutting wheel.**)

 

[SpyGuy]

So, the mistake:

Water pipe just didn't weld very well with my little 110v MIG, so I had to fix it somehow. the solution was to cut the bad section off the bike, carve up a 1/4" plate to fit the ends of the frame tubes, set up a new head tube using a pipe and car lugnuts at either end (don't laugh, it's true and it worked!), and get everything welded back together.

 

[SpyGuy]

Well, let's see what this sucker looks like with the mocked-up engine and rear wheel in place:

Now, up against a standard pocketbike frame for comparison:

Dig those crazy footpegs - can anyone guess what they were originally?

Yup, those are the ends from a fireplace set! I found a couple of big bolts that fit inside the threading, welded those to the frame, and screwed on the pegs and a set of jam nuts to keep them from rotating.

 

[SpyGuy]

Now, on to the front end. Since the training wheel support trick worked so well for the rear end, I did the same for the front end, as well:

1/4" plates for the triple trees, and the longest tire irons I could find for the forks and handlebars:

Getting it all tacked together:

Final welding, not yet cleaned up:

 

[SpyGuy]

Hey, starting to look like a bike!

 

[SpyGuy]

Well, let's drag out one of the regular-sized pocketbikes, and take a look .....

That Cagllari/Daytona sure looks big against this thing, doesn't it?

 

[SpyGuy]

Doing some work on the forks, carving down the rear of the triple trees so I can turn the front end without whacking the ends of the 1/4" plate against the frame:

And from the front:

Turns out I goofed on measuring the distance between the top of the tire and the bottom triple tree. Once I got the wheel bolted on, it rubbed against the bottom part of the forks. Five minutes and several cuts later, everything was cool again:

 

[SpyGuy]

Mounting up the tank and seat:

The tank is a standard gas tank from the same style pocketbike. The seat is from a gas scooter, with the seatpost being from a regular bicycle. The seatpost was notched at one end, and supported by a big ol' lugnut on the frame. (Oh, forgot to mention: the crossmembers on the frame are sawed-off bicycle kickstands.)

Hard to believe those are the same size wheels, huh?

 

[shenion]

hehe, looks like fun.

I'd work on the welds though. Some look good, others look like an unsteady hand and/or poor wire feed.

I take it that is gasless?

 

[SpyGuy]

All right, so just how small is this sucker? Got ya covered .... First, a reference photo. A standard US license plate is 12" long, as evidenced by my handy-dandy tape measure.

Now, standing on end next to the bike:

Wow, that's small!

Head to head on my truck bed:

Wheel comparison:

 

[SpyGuy]

Throttle and brakes:

Since the tire irons were of a smaller diameter than a normal set of handlebars, that meant I had to do some playing around with the controls. I finally settled on a goped two-finger pull throttle and a brake lever that I had broken during a practice run with one of my other bikes. The throttle bracket wouldn't tighten down enough, so a washer and nut were slid between handlebar and mount before tightening. The brake lever mount was already broken, so I fabbed up a quickie mount using a pipe hanger strip.

Because the throttle cable was now too long, I had to fab a spacer to take up some of the extra slack. I wound up taking two rolled pins, and sliding one inside the other. (Sorry, no pics of the spacer.)

Now, since I had the throttle wired up, I needed a way to stop this thing! Using the original brake bracket from the goped rear wheel, I tacked a tab to the frame, and wired up the brakes. Only one brake on the bike, but then again, I also am not planning on going over 10mph .....

 

[SpyGuy]

On a normal pocketbike, the exhaust pipe runs over the top of the engine. Since I had made the frame so small, I couldn't use that kind of pipe, so I needed to fab something up. A goped can seemed to work, but didn't quite fit - the holes were about 1/8" off to bolt straight up. Enter the shorty exhaust pipe, made from the end of a ruined pb pipe and a washer welded on the end:

And on the bike:

It hangs a little lower than I'd like, so that will be rebuilt sometime in the future.

 

[SpyGuy]

Sorry, shenion, just caught your post. Yes, this is all done with a 90-amp 110v MIG fluxcore wirefeed, no gas. Was still in the "trying to stay steady" stage .... Several of the welds were ground off and redone, because I didn't keep everything smooth enough.

 

[SpyGuy]

Anyway, on to the "minor things", such as cutting the chain to fit, making an upper engine mount, and making new tank mounts. (In earlier pictures, you'll notice the tank was originally held on by a big ol' hose clamp in true redneck style.)

The upper engine mount was built from a pair of 1/4" box-end wrenches, with the head of a 9/16" wrench to hold them apart. A small tab was welded to the frame, and bolts run through and tightened up.

The tank mounts are also 1/4" box-end wrenches (in actuality, the same wrench - I broke it in half while working on my car). Why is the killswitch mounted under the seat? because it's the only "normal-sized" bar on the entire bike!

Now, can anyone guess what these two tubes are going to be for?

Later on down the line, The Re-Cycle will be set up with a removeable sidecar, also made from scrap metal. Those two tubes will be the receiver tubes for the sidecar mount.

 

[SpyGuy]

And one last finishing touch, just for fun ....

How does the bike run? Surprisingly well, actually. The dimensions are not all that far off the size of a pocketbike, and moving the pegs forward and the seat backwards allows me a little more freedom of movement. One good pull is all it takes to fire up the Re-Cycle, and the CVT makes it pull like a freight train. Amusingly, it's already developed a quirk or two of its own - whenever I go to kill the engine, it'll backfire once like it's saying, "Okay, I'm done, period."

I've taken it to several small events, and people are always amazed at its small size, even more so when they realize what it's made from. "You made it from WHAT???" Yep, tire irons, junk metal, and goped wheels. I didn't build it as a race bike, obviously, just a fun little fairgrounds and swap meet cruiser. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I learned a lot during the build, and have some new ideas to incorporate into the next one.

 

[shenion]

Ok, your welds do look better.

BTW, those tire irons and iron pipe are hardened, difficult to weld. Take a close look for cracking on the welds. Some may take a while to appear.

Keep up the posts, good to see lots of picts

A sidecar is on my todo list for ome of my GPz550's, the dog will love it

 

[SpyGuy]

Thanks, shenion. Like I said, this was all a learning process for me, and anything that didn't look right got ground off and redone until it DID look right. The frame and forks are about as strong as I could make them, hitting all of the welds from both sides for maximum strength - I wasn't taking any chances, since it was (literally) my butt on the line here! She's a heavy little thing, about fifty or sixty pounds, but definitely solid - dropped the frame off the workbench a few times during the build .... oops.

Not too much was spent on materials. The tire irons were a buck apiece. The 1/4" plates were free, off the bottom of fence posts. The bicycle kickstands and training wheel mounts came from a bicycle wrecking yard nearby that lets me take what I want or need for free. The wheels, seat, and throttle came from a wrecked goped I picked up for $50, and the CVT on the engine was brand-new for another $40. The engine itself was donated from one of my pocketbike builds, and the brake lever was about to go in the trash since I'd previously broken it. Those killer footpegs came from a $3 fireplace set - got 'em at a thrift store - and the horn cost a whole $8 brand-new at Toys'R'Us.

(I have to be fair, though - the receiver tubes and sidecar tubes cost me about $15 for the set, plus a 8" Harbor Freight dolly wheel was another $10. All the other stuff for the sidecar i already have, now I just need to start putting it together.)

 

[Dangle_kt]

Great work!

I have had an old 49cc two stroke mini quad for years with a bust engine. I have a full replacement engine sat there.

Always planned on making a little bar stool racer from the engine/bits of the chassis and steering. Make it hardtail to avoid any problems with my fat ar$e and the puny shock!

Might have to lift that plan more to the top of my ever expanding "to do" list!

Only thing I'd say is - don't sell it in case someone gets hurt my one of your welds falling apart. You dont to get sued!