All the best.

Roy

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 McGill Motorsport - the PTFE lined ones with a brass insert - the high performance ones are too stiff and the cheap ones too loose.

Hope he doesn't mind the mention.

Martin.

This did work very well - all shudder gone and smooth braking. As I didn't care about the actual numbers on the gauge being calibrated, just minimising deflection, a cheap one was good enough.

It could be re-pinning the hinge may take up some slop, but also there could be some stretch on the arms.

So as suggested refacing may work for a short time, I was going to say stop gap solution!

An engineer could get the parts clamped up and ream the hinge hole slightly bigger, by say 0.1mm~0.2mm. I don't know the size but they do go up in small increments. Then a new bespoke pin would need making and fitting.  

The short-term plan is to clamp up the hinge with Jubilee clips to prevent any movement.

Long-term, hopefully Geoff Booker will do some interesting metalwork to permanently replace the hinge pin with something a little bigger and to de-ovalise/ oversize the locking pin holes.

I thought I'd tag a question or two onto the end of this thread, if that's okay...

I'm working on an old Greenspeed trike which has crossover tie-rods, one of which is bent.  Where can I buy these?

I saw the earlier recommendation for McGill Motorsport for the rod ends.  Is there anything else I'd need to overhaul the steering?  (I'm not a great mechanic, and trikes are new to me, and I haven't started stripping it so I'm not sure how it hangs together).  Will the rod ends be held onto the trike with standard bolts, or will it need bushes etc?

Thanks very much, LWaB - very helpful.

I contacted MR Recumbents before I bought the trike, and it sounds like some spares aren't available.

The trike was damaged on its way to me.  The chainring was badly bent, and a bar-end mirror had sheared in half (near the ball joint of a B&M mirror).  This in addition to the bent tie rod.   I'm trying to work out what's going on with the steering alignment...

I tied two straps between the handlebars and the crossmember (so that the handlebars were held parallel to the crossmember).  The handlebars also looked parallel to the front edge of the mesh seat when viewed from above.  The right hand wheel (the one without the bent tie rod) has significant toe-in.  I measured very roughly with a tape measure and it might be in the region of 30mm.  The left hand wheel (with the bent tie rod) has maybe 10mm of toe-out.  If the bent rod was straightened then that would increase the toe-out - I'm not sure if it would give 20mm (or whatever measurement would be required to increase the toe-out to match the toe-in of the right hand wheel.  If that were the case then both wheels would be pointing off by a roughly equal amount in the same direction.  If the wheels were then set straight ahead the handlebars would be skewed.  There's not a lot of exposed thread on the tie-rod ends - I could probably extend them, but not shorten them by much.

I'm not sure what's happened to it (I was assured the tracking was perfect before the damage occurred).  I also haven't worked out how to sort it.  Perhaps I just need to keep the handlebars parallel and make whatever significant tie-rod adjustments are necessary, and maybe buy new tie rods and rod ends.

I've asked Trisled for a shipping price for their under-toe wheel alignment tool.  I think it might be a fairly new item, and I'm not sure if it would help in aligning the handlebars to the wheels, but it should help to make the toe-in adjustments easier.

Thanks very much, LWaB.

I can't see a problem with anything else.  I had wondered if the handlebar pivot had been knocked around, but I'm not sure if that's possible.

I think I'll strip off the tie rods, clean and lubricate the tie rod ends and threads etc, try to straighten the obviously bent tie rod, reassemble, then try to adjust toe-in.

I'd like to ride the trike before making a decision on whether or not it's worth doing a full refurb including powder coating.

There seem to be a few other issues including a worn wheel bearing, and some movement which is felt at the rim.  Initially I wondered if that might be caused by the worn bearing, but now think there's play somewhere else - maybe in the backing plate or kingpin.

If this was my bike [and that's important because not everybody would be happy with the following procedure] what I would do is:

1. Renew the hinge pivot bolt if possible

2. Get a sacrificial quick release bolt [or any M8 bolt will do]

3. Rub down one surface [not sure which one I'd choose from here] of the hinge to remove all the paint, and score/make rough with something [possibly even some very light lines with an angle grinder]

4. Put some brown packing tape over the other surface...very carefully and precisely

5. Then get some carbon fibre, lay it inside the hinge [Goldilocks Style - not too much not too little....although less is better because you can always add more later]. It might be difficult to prevent epoxy getting onto the bolt [ hence sacrificial]....and be careful to keep it away from the hinge bolt, but plenty of grease should sort that out.

6. Then do the hinge up real tight. To go belt and braces - take the seat off and get a laser on the frame when you do it to keep it all aligned properly.

7. Leave to cure and open up!

You should be able to eliminate all the play so the surfaces seat real snug against each other.

Yes......it's a bodge, but a high class bodge I would say :-)

I certainly wouldn't hesitate if it were my bike and was getting those kind of issues.

Another question. The GT3 came with a proprietary rear rack but missing the proprietary bolt-on bracket that would allow a 2-bolt dyno taillight to be fitted to the normal flat plate.

I could bodge something but is the correct piece available as a spare part? I’ve not seen it advertised anywhere.

I have a couple of bikes needing new chain tubing so interested in your findings with the PTFE tube from China.

To all: any other suggestions?

The eBay chain tubing arrived fairly tightly coiled, requiring some time and application of a heat gun to straighten it enough for use. If I had my time over, I’d order another metre more than what I calculated. The PTFE chain tubes are a touch shorter than is ideal but quite a bit cheaper than PTFE chain tubing ordered from specialists. The cheapest option is PVC of course but PTFE supposedly reduces chain friction at a nominal environmental cost.

The old MTB front mech shifts fine up to the 58t chainring but we might have to increase that to something bigger as she is now overrunning the 58x11t top gear too often.

She is looking for the old style GT3 headrest that plugs into bith side tubes of the seatframe as the horizontal bar provides good mounting points for a bag and rear lights. The only available Greenspeed headrests rely on a single central support which provides none of those mounting points. The headrest is shown in  http://www.wrhpv.com/greenspeed/gt3/pic/index.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.wrhpv.com/greenspeed/gt3/pic/index.html  Any ideas where to find one?

Also, I am working in Oz for a couple of weeks and have some room in my baggage. Let me know if you want some difficult-to-find tyres or recumbent spares ferried to Auld Blighty.