59 I also found that the teeth on the flywheel were chewed up in one spot and no supplier had a ring gear to fit this engine. Thus, until that problem was solved my wife and I had to push-start it. It was light and easy to push at a fast walk. I would then jump in the doorless right side, get my foot (or hand) on the clutch and slam the right side shift lever into gear, then let go of the clutch and off I went. If it stalled when driving, I could start it this way by myself –but it was not easy to say the least, and made a lot of watchers laugh. Once moving the steering was very light and the single front wheel could be turned to almost at right angles to the centerline of the vehicle. This enabled a turning circle of just a little over its own length. But if you needed to park it more tightly, you only had to get out and lift and put it where you wanted it, – quite easy for one person. Despite having only three wheels, with a single front wheel, the whole vehicle was so low to the ground that it never felt "tippy" even when cornering hard while braking. However, there was a design problem. When turning left at full lock it stalled the engine. In this instance the whole vehicle had to pivot on that left rear wheel – which therefore could not turn, so it just stalled the engine. Right turns were just fine, but left turns required you scribe a much larger turning circle. The engine and drive train was located in a compartment at the far left of the boot. The drive was transmitted via two chains as common on motorcycles. There was a sprocket on the engine which sent its power via a chain to the input sprocket on the gearbox. The output sprocket on the gearbox in turn powered a chain to a large sprocket attached to the left rear wheel. This worked well – except during a full lock turn to the left. The frame of this vehicle was very light, and if I remember right, bonded directly into the fiberglass. The suspension was of the rearward trailing arm type. The spring was a flat spring steel torsion bar just under the floor and running across the rear of the boot, This spring was bonded in rubber and set diagonally into a square section steel mount. This therefore was the pivot point of the trailing arm. My wife and I do agree that the rubber suspension gave it a good and soft ride. To keep the rear drive chain at a constant tension the distance between the gearbox sprocket and sprocket on the rear wheel must also be kept constant. This is necessary so that when the rear wheel went up and down over road variations the distance between the output sprocket and the rear wheel sprocket would remain at (or close) to the same to ensure a reasonable tension. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
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