Mods please delete if inappropriate but I'm chuffed to bits with it. I've just had an intense couple of weeks finishing the rebuild on my Blackjack Avion trike that I first built about 15 years ago. Finished it today. See the pics below. This past week was a world of pain getting the engine to run right. Now I just need to sort out a pushrod tube seal oil leak and repair the bottom of the drivers side mudguard - the car fell off the jack with no wheel on!! Doh... Will remove the gel coat, apply glass tissue to both sides, fill, sand and respray. Fitted an amp hidden under the seat to use my MP3 player and hooked it up to a boom box in the boot - seriously loud. Rose jointed bonnet hinges let me flip the bonnet onto the scuttle so I no longer need a bonnet prop. Also bonnet can't fall off the prop and get a star crack... Engine now starts easily - cause of the problem was major corrosion in the SU carb due to crappy modern petrol. Unfortunately, there's a leak from the drivers side pushrod tube seal so the head and barrel will have to come off AGAIN... Checking Drilled bracket for twin coils for fit - gearbox was repainted after this. New number plate bought at Retromobile in February. Totally legal - when I'm driving around in France... I'm loving the colour - Morgan Sports Grey but gloss not satin. Needs a wash and wax. Whitewalls need a scrub. Some touching in of paint on chassis and running gear maybe. Suspension and chassis brush painted with Craftsmaster Raddle. Brooklands screens with ally cowl rather than the usual pillars. I'm very pleased with them.
It's an air-cooled Citroen flat twin of 602cc. Has a 4 speed Citroen manual gearbox driving the front wheels. Chassis is custom made. If I win the UK Lottery tonight it will have an 8BA flathead driving the rear wheel through a T5 and a suicided Ford axle out front on quarter elliptics (I can dream)
hope the mods dont delete. this is very cool. way cooler than those can am spyders they are building here now.
Thanks for the kind comments. I hope some of it is relevant. I've tried to introduce a small trad hot rod flavour to the rebuild. One of the things I wanted to do was move away from bought in kit car parts and make as much as I could. The HAMB as been a great source of inspiration for that. Next stage is to fit this; It's a supercharger from a Nissan Micra SuperTurbo (1000cc) and went for £100. It's much smaller than an Eaton M45 or or M24 but not as small as the AMR500. However, I can play around with pulley size. It currently has an electric clutch but I think I will ditch that and run it full time in a draw through style. Shouldn't be too difficult to fit drawing through the SU carb. The real difficulty is sorting out the drive to the supercharger and relocating the alternator. That's for the winter though as I need to crack on with the Modified;
Update - My Blackjack Avion is going to be featured by Complete Kit Car magazine at their Donnington Park Indoor Show at the beginning of September. It is one of their 10 most memorable feature cars from the last five years. I think the reason for that is that I made a real effort to build it with a hot rodding ethic and I have had the help, support and advice of many hot rodders from the UK NSRA (thanks Langy) and The HAMB. Strangely, the trad rodders seem to like the car and the only negative comments I've had are from the life stylers.
The Jalopy Journal
