4.2 LITER JAGUAR TRIKE

I saw this trike 2 years ago, at the 1998 Bulldog Bash in England. In June 1999 it was a feature trike in Back Street Heroes and this month, December 2000 it came up for sale in the same magazine. It didn't take long for me to decide I still liked the look of it and so I contacted it's current owner - Budgie - and agreed to come over to England to have look and a ride, to see how it was in real life. Well, I'll tell you: In real life it even more "fuggof" than in these pictures.

In the picture above, Budgie ( Ian ) the owner starts it up for me first thing in the morning. We arrived Fridaynight late and had a great evening, including a wonderful meal, prepared by Helene, Ian's girlfriend. This is early Saturdaymorning, as I was anxious to ride the bike and couldn't sleep any longer. It started up first thing, despite having been left standing in the rain the entire week. K&N's soaked and all. ( the yellow trike in the background is Helene's, his wive )

Ian took it out for a little spin just to warm the engine up. When I wanted to take a picture he had already gone. It's quick!!

Because there's no luggage space, the sale also included the little carrier in the pictures above and below. I think I'll make a carrier from a stepside pickup bed with wide tires ( on the other hand, I saw a carrier made of one of those bumpercars from the fair, which looked good as well ). Would make a better combination than this, don't you think?

When Ian bought it from Paul in May 2000, he wasn't satisfied with the wiring so he took the trike apart, stripped it, repainted it, did a bottomend rebuild, had the bars done in thickwall Stainless Steel and redid the entire wiring.

As you can see from the picture above, the cooling system uses the lower right framerail to carry the water to the radiator at the back of the trike. The radiator has two fans in front of it blowing cool air through. This set-up works perfectly to keep the trike's engine cool.

Painted and all, with brackets hanging from the top framerail to dry.

It has a Jaguar Independent Rear Suspension complete with handbrake, the brake rotors being in the middle on the axles. Spacerplates connect the axle to Transit Dualies, which give it it's agricultural look. A LPG tank is used as a fueltank, topped off with a Jaguar fillercap in the middle.

The 3 pictures below were taken by Ian at the same show I saw the trike. He took them with the idea of building a trike like this, but a few months later Paul called him and sold him the trike.

It had a Jaguar Mk 10 Automatic Gearbox ( when it later appeared this one was bad it was changed to a Borg-Warner 8, from an Aston Martin which I had rebuilt ) the lever is barely visible. It's in front of the framerail coming down over the bellhousing, above the footpeg in the picture below. Because of the lack of linkage all the way to the interior of the original car, it jumps into gear too easy, so I will be making a longer lever ( topped by an 8-ball ) sliding through a piece of metal , securing it in every gear.

Tillerbars and a leadinglinkfork point it in the direction you want to go, although at low speeds it takes a bit of work to get around corners. At speed ( up to 160 km/h ) it is pretty stable.

Since the pictures above a couple of small things have changed ( like a smaller master brake cilinder ), but it gives a good idea what it looks like.

Below some pictures Helene took when I was out on the trike for the first time, and as you can see: I was impressed !!!!!!

We went to England January 12th (2001) to pick up the trike, rode around on it all Friday. We had a lot of fun. While sitting at a SafeWay's for a coffee, someone came up to me asking permission to take pictures of it in the parkinglot. I said I'd come along with him. We had a conversation about the trike and when I asked him where he was from it appeared he was from Holland too. We'd been talking in our best English for 10 minutes! He was the editor of "Autoweek", a well read carmagazine overhere. They said they'd contact me for an article.

pictures courtesy of Raymond Haan.

Well, as you can see in the pictures above it ran like it should. Trouble began just 10 km off the ferry on Saturday. It started with a vaporlock in the cooling system, easily solved by squeezing the radiatorhose. After 15 more miles: A heavy cloncking sound somewhere in the rear of the engine. I stopped the trike and to make a (very) long story short: I had it trailered home by the ANWB. No glorious arrival home.

I started the engine the next day, but while riding around the block the sound got worse and worse, so all I could do was ride it into my garage, get the help of a mechanically schooled friend and take the engine out for inspection and probably have it rebuilt ( What I thought while writing this piece, more on that below ).

Luckily the trike was professionally built, meaning everything was well thought through. Framemembers carry not only the engine, but also for example the powerbrake and generator. This meant we could take the engine out in only 2 hours, lifting the front of the trike to ride the engine from underneath it. I took the engine to ERAS ( Hoi Cristel, zeg even gedag aan Dick en Cees ), a shop that rebuilds engines here in Utrecht. They took it apart and found a real mess. Most bearings had gone, one conrodbearing turned around and got wedged into it's opposite ( see first picture on page 2 ), one crank bearing has been turning around in it's support so that means the crank will be bent, oilpump pitted ( probably the beginning of all trouble ), pistons damaged. It is a wonder it did run at all. The strange thing is it didn't smoke at all, and while riding around to test it ( 50 miles ) there were no strange sounds or excessive smoke from the exhausts.
I called Ian and he promissed me to bring another engine, of which he knew and he brought it around the next weekend ( 21-1 ). Took that to the rebuilders and that one's salvagable. ERAS is working on it right now. This one's a Mk10 item: 245 BHP.

YOU CAN SEE THE TOTAL REBUILD OF THE JAG ENGINE ON THE SECOND PAGE OF THE "BIG CAT".

OR GO TO PAGE 3 OF THE JAGUARTRIKE.

WANT TO SEE WHAT THE EDITOR OF THE SOUTH-AFRICAN JAGUARCLUB HAS TO SAY ABOUT THIS TRIKE? CLICK HERE,  IT"S GREAT FUN !!!

The drawing below is made by Bas, one of our tattoo-artists. He came up with this, my trike being a kind of rat Jaguar bike/trike.

JUST DO IT !